Earl Spencer has insisted he is ‘telling the truth’ about a phone call with Prince Charles following the death of his sister, Princess Diana.
Charles Spencer says in his new autobiography – exclusively serialised in the Daily Mail – that the then-Prince said of his ex-wife ‘We’ll forget her soon enough’ amidst an argument over William and Harry’s involvement in her funeral.
Buckingham Palace reacted with a strongly worded – and rare – public statement, saying the King was ‘mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgement and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss’.
But the earl has insisted of his account, detailed in his tell-all account Swan Song: Diana, My Sister: ‘I can tell you here and now, those are exactly the words he said.’
Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg from his Althorp estate in Northamptonshire, Earl Spencer said he had told friends and family of Charles’ alleged words at the time, labelling them ‘monstrous’.
‘I’ve only ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life,’ he said.
‘I was hyper alert to what he was saying and those are precisely the words that he said and I promise that to you now.’
Alluding to the Palace’s statement, he added: ‘Genuinely, that is what he said. I don’t hear him saying he didn’t say that.’
Earl Spencer has insisted he is ‘telling the truth’ about remarks made by the then-Prince Charles in the wake of Princess Diana’s death
His explosive memoir – Swan Song: Diana, My Sister – is one of the most anticipated books of the year and is due to be released next week
The earl claims Charles ‘went ballistic’ and ‘ranted for a while’ after he tried to tell the future King that Diana would not have wanted William and Harry to walk in her procession.
‘And then he stopped and I thought, oh now, now he’s gonna pull himself together and say something more appropriate,’ he said.
‘And then, he said, “we’ll forget her soon enough”.’
Earl Spencer added that the remark ‘stunned’ him, and that he hung up.
Prince Harry and Prince William, aged 12 and 15, ultimately did walk behind Diana’s coffin in her funeral procession in September 1997 alongside Charles, Prince Philip and Earl Spencer.
Harry would later tell Newsweek magazine of the decision: ‘My mother had just died and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television.
‘I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don’t think it would happen today.’
The Duke of Sussex, newly returned to the UK with his wife Meghan and their two children, is ‘aware’ of the book but has not read it, sources have told the Mail.
He ignored questions from reporters about it last night as he attended the inaugural Invictus Spirit Awards at the historic Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.
Swan Song: Diana, My Sister is due to be published next week.
However, several copies of the book were stolen from a lorry parked in a lay-by in the Netherlands earlier this week.
The tomes had been wrapped in black plastic to hide their contents, but publishing insiders believe they may have been deliberately targeted in an audacious bid to steal them before the official release.
