Earl Spencer, Diana’s brother: King Charles told me the world would forget her

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1:51This is fire. We need healing. We need trust. These companies don't really, they don't care what governments do. This is a war. The first thing that we want is the war to end. For this episode, I speak to Earl Spencer, brother of Diana, Princess of Wales. She was the most famous woman in the world, once destined to become queen. Her campaigning and chosen causes broke royal convention and touched millions of lives. but she was relentlessly pursued by the press, admired and attacked on a scale that few public figures have ever known. But she died at the age of just 36 after a car crash in Paris.

2:32Now, nearly 30 years on, her brother has decided to reveal the story as he saw it, with an attack on those he says harmed her and the royal establishment he claims failed to protect. But Buckingham Palace responded by questioning whether grief has clouded his judgment and memory. Earl Spencer tells me why he believes his account of events must be placed on the historical record. I have a duty. You know, I was an eyewitness to history. And it's my duty in the final season of my life. This was very much a spur for me to write this now, was both my parents died in their 60s. I'm in my 60s. I'm aware of mortality and I wanted to just put things down once and for all that were true.

3:20And part of the spine of my book is the construction of my eulogy. This is not a threat, it's a fact. I know lots of things about the king, which I chose not to include in the book because they were not relevant. I'm a historian, I've worked for decent news organisations like yourself, and it was just my duty to lay it out.

3:47Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Errol Spencer. Well I was living in South Africa at the time in Cape Town and I got a call in the middle of the night and it was my sister Jane and she said don't worry, Diana's been in a car crash but it's not too serious and I thought okay well even if it's not serious I can probably find out what's happening on the news. And then through the night, I watched the TV news unfurling. And then I kept getting more and more distressing calls from home from my sister. And then it escalated after a few hours. I heard my brother-in-law in the background, who Robert Fellows used to work for the Queen as her private secretary.

4:30And I heard him go, oh no. And then my sister Jane said, I'm afraid she's died. So that's how. So it started in my life in that night as a little prang. And then it became a broken leg, perhaps a head injury, and then death. And in your book, you recount how your little girl, Eliza, said, she's not dead in real life, is she? Yeah, it was really heartbreaking. I was alone in the house with my four children, who were very small at the time. And my three little girls came tumbling through into the kitchen. And Diana had just been staying with us a few months earlier in Cape Town. So when I said, I'm afraid I've got this terrible news, and they just looked up at me and I said, yes, I'm afraid Aunt Diana's died.

5:18And that's what Eliza said, not in real life, Daddy. Utterly heartbreaking. But as you were making preparations to get back here to the family ancestral home, Althrope, you had another call, a call from Prince Charles. Of course, now the king. What did he say and how did he sound? Well, I was rushing around the house preparing the children and all of that sort of thing for the day ahead. And I remember picking up the telephone. I was upstairs in my house in Cape Town. And he was telling me how he had told the boys, William and Harry, at Balmoral and broken the news to them. and I felt, as I say in the book actually, I felt there was a sort of giddy tone.

6:03I'd had a lot of calls that day from people who cared, who were stunned like we all were and I just felt there was a lightness in his tone about Diana's death that really jarred with me. You write that he was giddily elated like a lottery winner. I mean you're suggesting he was somehow pleased that his former wife was dead. Well, every word in this book I report exactly as I saw it and felt it at the time. And I was surprised at the giddiness of his tone. That's what I'm recording there. It's an incredibly damning thing to say, though, about his reaction to the death of the mother of his children.

6:48And you go on to write, I suspect the prince's reaction must have been to think more of how this event might free him to marry the woman he loved, rather than appreciating the loss of the one he did not. You're suggesting there in black and white that the now king felt that Diana's death was rather convenient because he would be able to marry Camilla. That is how I felt at the time from the tone of his voice. So I've only ever had two calls from him, and they were both around this time. One was on the day of Diana's death, and one was a couple of days later. But are you sure that's what he was thinking?

7:29I cannot be sure. I'm saying that's what I assume from the tone is a possibility, and that's all I can do. As you mentioned, there was then a second call, another phone call between you and the former Prince Charles as you were planning Diana's funeral. Now, we know there were huge ructions behind the scene at that time of massive grief. What kind of event should it be? Who should be in charge? And there was an instruction from the palace that her two beloved boys should walk behind the coffin through the streets of London. you tried to stop that happening but what happened in that conversation with Charles?

8:12I was having a phone conversation with a colonel from the household at Buckingham Palace and as he was about to finish our conversation he said and it's been agreed that the two young princes will walk behind their mother's coffin and I said well of course that's not going to happen it just seemed so monstrous and he said well, it's been decided it will. And I said, but my sister wouldn't have wanted that. And he sort of coughed politely and the conversation came to an end. And then quite soon after that, a sort of dedicated phone line in my office went again. And it was the then Prince of Wales saying, I gather you've got a problem with the funeral service.

8:53And I was thinking, no, I haven't, because I was thinking of the structure of the actual service in Westminster Rabi. And then he said, I gather you don't think William and Harry should walk behind Diana's coffin. And I said, well, of course not, sir. She wouldn't want it. And then he said, well, I walked behind Lord Mountbatten's coffin. And I said, yes, but you were 30 and he wasn't your mother. And then to be, I mean, he went ballistic would be the right term and started really going for my family as a whole about their sense of duty, not being adequate enough and ranted for a while. I have no idea how long, but it was a significant period.

9:33And I just listened. And then he stopped and I thought, oh, now he's going to pull himself together and say something more appropriate. And then he said, we'll forget her soon enough. What went through your mind? Well, I'm not sure I can say exactly what went through my mind, but I really was so stunned. And I just, after a stunned silence, I said, I cannot believe you just said that and I hung up on him. You know that Buckingham Palace has already said with a degree of fury that that didn't happen. They haven't actually, Laura. They've sort of smudged that one, haven't they? They've said that recollections may vary.

10:21Well, let me read you exactly what the palace has said. They said, his majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss. The king is plainly furious. Buckingham Palace almost never issues any kind of statement like that. Well, is he furious or is he embarrassed? Because I can tell you here and now, those are exactly the words he said. I've only ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life. I was hyper alert to what he was saying. And those are precisely the words he said.

11:05And I promise that to you now. Genuinely, that is what he said. I don't hear him saying he didn't say that. Did you write it down? Did you keep a diary? Do you have evidence that that is what he said at the time? because to be fair, this was a time of massive shock and emotion for both of you. I told friends and family straight away, close friends and family, about what had been said because it was so monstrous. And then beyond that, it very much informed. This was just before I really tackled the eulogy. You can see evidence of that conversation in the final eulogy. I really stressed Diana's sense of duty.

11:48duty comes across very clearly in the eulogy. And then it culminates in something which I think really underlines the truth of my assertion here. Which is, if you get to the final bit of my eulogy, it is that her fantastic qualities will never be extinguished from our minds. It was a direct rebuttal of, we'll forget her soon enough. Which Charles are the public meant to believe? Are they to believe you or are they to believe the king, the head of state of this country, who's giving the impression very forcefully that this didn't happen? Who are we to believe? Well, I'm telling the truth. So the king is giving an impression to the country that's not true, misleading people, even lying?

12:39I can hardly be responsible for what Buckingham Palace says. All I can tell you is what was said and what I heard and what shocked me. What else would have made me hang up on the king that day? It was something as outrageous as that slur against Diana. What do you think that her sons, his sons, your nephews, who you vowed so publicly, so movingly to protect, will think when they hear you saying that, revealing these words, nearly three decades on, which you know are bound to stir up huge amounts of pain and anger. Well, I don't like to talk about what I've been speaking about to William and Harry, but this will not be a surprise to them.

13:25I will tell you that. These words will not be a surprise to them. But what are they to make of that? As human beings, you're telling the world their father said, don't worry, everyone will forget your dead mother. I have a duty, you know, as an eyewitness to history, and it's my duty in my, the final season of my life, this was very much a spur for me to write this now, was both my parents died in their 60s, I'm in my 60s. I'm aware of mortality, and I wanted to just put things down once and for all that were true. And part of the spine of my book is the construction of my eulogy. I know this is not a threat, it's a fact.

14:13I know lots of things about the king, which I chose not to include in the book because they were not relevant. I'm a historian. I've worked for decent news organisations like yourself. And it was just my duty to lay it out. There is a reason why those words were in my eulogy. And I have to give that reason. Sounds a bit like a threat. You're saying you know other things about the king that could be damaging to him? No, not at all a threat. It's just the reality. I want to give the context of what I said and what I didn't say. I'm not threatening. I've got no interest. I'm not a salacious writer on any level.

14:53The point being that if I was a salacious writer and wanted to write that sort of thing, I have plenty of other things I could have said and really have no interest in doing so. I just wonder, and you know this will be the case, that some people listening will wonder if you are including some of these allegations in order to create interest to sell your book perhaps. You may be accused of that, you know that. Of course, I've been accused of lots of things. I remember straight after delivering the eulogy, I became a bit of a tabloid punch bag. So I'm used to, when I speak up for Diana, I'm used to brickbats coming my way.

15:32That's what happens. My job, though, is at the end of the day, I think we have to get back to why I wrote this. It's a brother's tribute, a loving tribute to a sister. And I think she deserves honesty. So that's what I've delivered.

15:50You're listening to The Interview on the BBC World Service with me, Laura Kunzberg.

16:24Thank you. not a recommendation or offer to buy, sell, or attain any specific investment or service. Odoo, providing tools for businesses across industries into one fully integrated platform. Whatever your business needs, Odoo is committed to providing it. Learn more at odoo.com. In my conversation with Earl Spencer, I was struck by how personal some of his claims were about the king, his former brother-in-law, aware that as we sat opposite each other in the grand surroundings of the Spencer family seat, that his words were likely to have an explosive reaction. In the days after the claims first emerged from Earl Spencer's book, Buckingham Palace had already made plain how unhappy they were with the allegations and had strongly pushed back, questioning Earl Spencer's version of events.

17:21But he was resolute in our conversation, adamant that even some of the most explosive allegations had taken place. But it was also plain at heart he wants to tell a personal story to share the memories, happy and painful, of his sister, the former Princess of Wales. OK, let's go back to our conversation with me, Laura Kunzberg, and Charles Spencer, the brother of Princess Diana. Do you feel that people have sometimes misunderstood that, of course, she had these huge struggles, these huge agonies, but actually there was another side to her that, you know, leaps off many of the pages of your book?

18:04She was just phenomenally good fun. We grew up together. I mean, it was never a dull moment. We both have ADHD. She was never diagnosed, but clearly we did. I got a letter from a nanny recently. It was lovely. And she said, you were a bit of a handful. And I think we probably were. But nothing malicious, just a lot of energy and humour. You see, I wanted to get across that Diana was such a breath of pressure. She was also a complicated person. And under all of that pressure, she did also want to tell her story. And you introduced her to Martin Bashir. then of the BBC, the journalist who conned her into giving an interview by using the wildest of claims.

18:51Now, after years of investigations, the BBC has eventually apologised for their part in all of that. But do you think that that interview, what happened then, is linked even indirectly to her finding herself in Paris on the night of her death, getting into that car and ending up in that crash. Do you make that connection? I do make it as a connection, not the connection. So Diana was under huge pressure, and particularly after she separated. I do think with Panorama, yes, they conned Diana. They also conned me by showing false bank statements to me to get to Diana by saying that somebody else had been deceiving her.

19:36but what happened the consequences of diana being told you cannot trust anyone meant that she was alone that night really and and i think that she was convinced that her she got rid of her driver a totally innocent man was told that he couldn't be there he wouldn't have been in paris but police bodyguards you know private protection officers they were got rid of too and i think that's really it all builds to people said oh she was paranoid she wasn't paranoid She was convinced that she couldn't trust people because the evidence was there. And, you know, I think that left her vulnerable that night.

20:13But do you fear there is somehow an echo of what happened to Diana? You know, Harry has said on many occasions that he hasn't felt supported by the institution over the choices that he's made with his life. Do you worry about there being an echo of what happened to your sister? I think there's this perception in the media that I'm on Harry's side. Well, I'm on my deceased sister's son's side, both of them. And if either of them wanted anything, then I'd be equally there for them. And I never get involved in one camp or the other, except as a benign figure, I hope. That's my role. Do you think Diana would identify with the attention, the focus that has been put on them?

20:56And with Megan, who said she felt like she was the most trolled person in the world. They were here during the summer not so long ago. If you look at an article in a tabloid about Diana or the couple that you were mentioning, Harry and Meghan, they can be really, really unpleasant. And I think it would be really beholden on people to learn from Diana's example. I'm not here to speak for Harry and Meghan, but for anyone who's being destroyed in this way daily, it must be such a cancerous influence in their life. I saw it with Diana. I saw Diana. I mentioned it in the eulogy, had tears of despair.

21:34One of the problems with Diana was she was very, very sensitive to criticism. And of course, I'm sure most of your viewers now think, oh, she had this splendid life and it was all amazing and she was so privileged and so perfect in so many ways. But she was really brought low by all that criticism. And yeah, I suppose it's a pity when I see echoes of that now. Do you believe in the monarchy? I'm all for a monarchy, but I like a modern monarchy. Do you support this monarchy and this monarch? Because some of the claims in your book are incredibly damning of the monarch of this country, who also people watching will remember has been seriously ill in this last year.

22:18The family has had illness and strife and upset and division. Do you support this monarchy? I do. You have a funny way of showing it. Well, I'm not dealing with King Charles as monarch in this book. This is all 30-odd years ago and what was said and done then. There are so many memories in the book, and it feels very meaningful to sit in this house where much of what you recount took place, even though this wasn't your happy family home. Well, my fondest memories of Diana tend to be from our happy childhood home, which was before this, which is Park House in Sandringham in Norfolk. Just it wasn't it.

23:01Even though we had the rupture of my parents' divorce, it was such a happy home. And it's just those days there, carefree days. So not an instance, but a period of life. And I tell you, it really breaks me up. When I look at old photographs of Diana as a child and then think what happened to her, it's terribly sad. How much do you miss her? Well every day, you know That's the thing with sibling loss, you never get over it Do you think there may be a time where you've used the phrase get over but reading the book and given how this is all played in public there is a sense that somehow what happened to her has understandably almost consumed you at times Luckily I have a hugely diverse and happy life One of the reasons I call this Swan Song actually is because it's my sign-off.

23:54I have been Diana's brother. This is my final take on the situation. And I have a wonderful, happy life, gorgeous children, fabulous wife. And we live this much more normal life than this looks like. And that's my future. This is my swan song too. I'm not here to bang on about Diana. This is my final word, celebration of her. And I will step off into the sunset now and not be available for comment. But there will be, as we've discussed, a lot of turbulence, a lot of anger, perhaps a lot of division stirred up by some of the more eye-catching claims that you have made. some people might wonder just maybe as maybe in every family some family secrets are better left unsaid they certainly are and they have been left unsaid

24:55thank you for listening to the interview you'll find more in-depth conversations on the interview wherever you get your bbc podcasts including a conversation with google ceo sundar pichai as well as interviews with former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and many others. Until the next time, bye for now.

25:49Transcription by CastingWords