‘Gaslighting’: Diana’s brother hits back at palace over his claim about the King

September 24, 2026 — 2:51amEarl Spencer has accused Buckingham Palace officials of “gaslighting” him over his account of his sister, Princess Diana, when they suggested grief had clouded his memory of the past.Spencer stood by his controversial claim that King Charles – then the Prince of Wales – had said the world would “forget” Diana after she died in a tragic car crash in 1997.Earl Spencer, brother of Princess Diana, on ITV’s Lorraine program.YouTubeIn his first live television interview about his new book, Spencer also insisted he did not set out to write a “hit piece” on the King and sought instead to celebrate his sister.But his claims are being denounced by palace insiders and defenders of the King across the British media, while broadcaster Piers Morgan threatens to sue him over a glaring error in the book.The furore centres on Spencer’s account of a private conversation with Charles about plans for Diana’s two sons, Princes William and Harry, to walk behind her coffin in her funeral procession.Spencer writes that he complained about the plan in a phone call but that Charles insisted it would go ahead.“He unleashed down the phone what I have always taken to be his pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death,” the earl writes in the new book. “‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough’.”Buckingham Palace issued a statement to the media to dismiss this version of the conversation said to have occurred almost three decades ago.“While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, 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 palace said in a statement.Spencer argued that the palace statement tried to cast doubt on his memory but did not deny the words he reported.“If you look at the words, it’s classic gaslighting,” the earl told ITV’s Lorraine program on Wednesday morning (UK time).“So what they do is, ‘Oh, maybe his mind’s not right to remember these things because of the distance of time and grief’.“No one said that the King didn’t say that because he did.”Princess Diana, 36, was killed in a crash in Paris when paparazzi photographers were chasing the car she was in with her partner at the time, Dodi Fayed.Born Diana Spencer, a member of an aristocratic family dating back centuries in Britain, she was close to her brother, who inherited the title and is now the head of the family.Copies of Earl Spencer’s new book on display in a London bookshop.AP Photo/Kin CheungSpencer antagonised the royal family at Diana’s funeral by praising her in a eulogy that criticised the way she was treated by them and the media.He said his eulogy had been influenced by the phone conversation with Charles about whether the world would remember Diana.Spencer said this was why he quoted the King’s remark about Diana being forgotten.“I wasn’t setting out to do a hit piece on the King at all,” he said.“The bits that have been included in the book are totally in context. So that clip you played of me [on ITV] getting through the end of the eulogy, I end with this thing that the final thought I give is that Diana will never be extinguished from our minds.“That was a direct counter to the King saying, ‘We’ll forget her soon enough’.“So it had to be in because the strand through the book is how did this eulogy come about?”Spencer joined Charles and Prince Philip in the funeral procession at a time of national mourning for Diana.Extracts from his new book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, appeared in The Daily Mirror last week, setting off a media storm over his claims.Commentators in The Times and the London Telegraph have strongly criticised Spencer and cast doubt on his memory, while also suggesting he has written a salacious book for the money.Spencer has given his critics ammunition with a basic error of fact in the book, when he describes broadcaster Piers Morgan as an editor of The Daily Mirror at a point in time when he was not.Morgan has announced he will sue Spencer over the mistake.Spencer admitted he was wrong.“I’m very happy to acknowledge I made a small error, and I’ve apologised, and it will be put right in the in the second edition,” he said.Morgan has called on the publisher, Penguin Random House, to stop selling the book.“It’s not just a little silly slip-up or mistake,” Morgan said.“He has directly accused me in his book, which is clearly going to sell gazillions of copies around the world, of the most egregious invasion of royal privacy in history.”Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.David Crowe is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.From our partners