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Earl
Spencer says he could write ‘hit piece’ on royal family if he wanted
‘My job
in this book was to celebrate Diana,’ the earl says of his new memoir
Wednesday
23 September 2026 13:16 BST
Earl Spencer has
said that he has the ability to write a damaging exposé on the royal family,
but insisted that it is not a threat as he has no intention of doing so.
Speaking
on the ITV show Lorraine,
Charles Spencer, Diana's younger brother, discussed his
memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which has sparked
controversy with its allegations against the monarchy.
The book,
which focuses
on Diana's life, has been criticised by former tabloid editor Piers Morgan, who
claims that Earl
Spencer wants to “destroy” the King's reputation.
The earl
said: “This is about Diana. It was impossible to give the full story of Diana's
life without putting in context certain things.”
He added:
“This is not a threat at all because I'm not going to do it, if I wanted to
write a hit piece on the royal family, I could do that – that's not my job.
“My job
in this book was to celebrate Diana.”
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image in gallery
Earl
Spencer said his ‘job in this book was to celebrate Diana’ (PA Media)
Earl
Spencer claims in his book that the King, then the Prince of Wales, said about
Diana “we’ll forget her soon enough” during an argument over whether her sons,
Prince William and Prince Harry, should walk behind their mother’s coffin in
her funeral procession.
The
memoir also alleges the King “sounded giddily elated – like a lottery winner”
when he spoke to the earl after Diana’s death.
In
response, Buckingham Palace said that 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”.
When
asked by Lorraine if he stood by everything he said about the King, the earl
replied: “Yes, so I would like to explain, I wasn’t setting out to do a hit
piece on the King at all.
“The bits
that have been included in the book are totally in context.”
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image in gallery
Earl
Spencer, Prince William, Prince Harry and the then-Prince of Wales, waiting by
the hearse carrying the coffin of Diana, Princess of Wales (PA Archive)
The earl
also said that he did not talk to any members of the royal family about his
book as he wanted to take “full responsibility” for its contents and it was not
a “book by committee”.
He added:
“So I told both William and Harry and my sisters earlier on the day that it was
released, as a piece of news, that the book was coming out.”
Asked by
Lorraine if he could be a mediator in the long-running rift between Diana’s
sons, the earl said: “But I’ve never presumed to be involved in that.
“Everyone
watching has probably knowledge of family rifts, they’re so personal, there’s
so much we don’t know about in any family rift, and it’s just down to the
individuals to deal with it how they want and I would never presume to advise
on that.”
The earl
also repeated his apology after wrongly suggesting in his book that Mr
Morgan was responsible for publishing photographs, taken with hidden
cameras, of Diana in a leotard working out at the gym, in the Daily Mirror
in 1993.
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image in gallery
Piers
Morgan has refuted claims made about him by Earl Spencer in his book about
Diana, Princess of Wales (PA Wire)
Mr Morgan
was working at The Sun at the time, and did not join the Mirror as
its editor until 1995.
Earl
Spencer said: “I mean, unlike some journalists we know, I’m very happy to
acknowledge I made a small error and I’ve apologised and it will be put right
in the second edition, but that’s it.”
Mr Morgan
has called on Diana’s brother to pulp the remaining copies of his book and
instructed his lawyers to demand the work be pulled from sale immediately.
He
reacted to the earl describing his mistake as a “small error” during an
appearance on the Channel 5 show Jeremy Vine, saying: “I don’t think
that’s a small error, nor do my lawyers, it’s a serious defamation.”
Mr Morgan
said: “I’m not professing to be the Mother Teresa of Fleet Street in all the
time I worked there, and I didn’t never make mistakes myself, but this is a
very, very big mistake and I think he’s done it in a way that’s incredibly
casual.”
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