Earl Spencer has denied ‘setting out to do a hit piece on the King’, as he insisted that he ‘stands by the truth’ and that the book ‘was for Diana’.
The Earl appeared on Lorraine in his first live television interview to promote his searing memoir – being exclusively serialised by the Daily Mail – Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which was published on Tuesday.
The book sparked anger in royal circles as it included the allegation that in the days after his sister’s death, the then Prince Charles told the Earl: ‘We will forget her soon enough’.
It prompted Buckingham Palace to issue an unprecedented statement, with royal aides questioning the veracity of his account and suggesting that grief can ‘cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory’.
But the Earl stuck by his claim on ITV today, saying the King’s response was ‘classic gaslighting’ and that he ‘wasn’t rattled’ by the furore that had resulted.
When Lorraine asked the Earl, 62, about the King’s statement in response, he said: ‘If you look at the words, it’s classic gaslighting.
‘So what they do is “ooh, maybe his mind’s not right to remember these things because of the distance of time and grief”. No one said the King didn’t say that, because he did and he couldn’t say that.’
He continued: ‘So I stand by the truth and that’s the way it is. I knew when I took this on that it would have a controversial effect, but it doesn’t matter because it’s for Diana and I’d do anything for her.’
The Earl appeared on his first live television appearance on Lorraine on Tuesday morning
He told Lorraine he was not ‘setting out to do a hit piece on King Charles’ but added: ‘If I wanted to do a hit piece, I could’
Earl Spencer pictured alongside Prince William, then 15, Prince Harry, then 12, and Prince Charles at Diana’s funeral on September 6, 1997
The Earl even added: ‘If I wanted to do a hit piece on the Royal Family, I could do that.
‘But that’s not my job – my job in this book was to celebrate Diana. By doing that, other people are not going to come off as well as they might want to, and there’s a huge power dynamic in this country – Buckingham Palace has journalists who basically take dictation from them, and that happens, it’s realistic, I knew it was going to happen.’
The Earl says he insisted to the then-Prince of Wales that Diana would not have wanted her young sons to endure such a public ordeal.
It is claimed Charles then questioned the Spencer family’s sense of duty before saying his former wife, whose death sparked a global outpouring of grief, would soon be forgotten.
Royal aides are said to be horrified by the allegations, and have said they are the opposite to the temperament of the man who now sits on the throne.
On the decision to have Harry and William walk behind Diana’s coffin, the Earl told Lorraine: ‘I was overruled. I can’t think there’s anyone alive today who thinks that was a good decision.
‘Diana and I used to fight each other’s corner really hard, and she’d left me as guardian of William and Harry, the most special things in her life were her boys.
Earl Spencer’s book, pictured being sold for half price in a London bookshop, was published on Tuesday
The Earl also addressed his row with Piers Morgan over claims he made about the former Mirror editor in his book, saying he had ‘apologised’ for the ‘small error’
‘I thought I had to speak for her in that moment and try and protect them from this, but then I was told they wanted to, which I don’t think is true, so that’s why it went ahead.’
He added: ‘But you look at these images, Harry was 12, he was tiny, he was a dot! And I remember that walk was much harder than delivering a eulogy actually, because as I mention when I write about it, what are you meant to do?
‘You’ve got to look straight ahead…it was agony.’
The Earl also denied speaking to Prince Harry or Meghan about the book when they stayed at his estate in Althorp, saying the only person he had discussed it with was his fourth wife, Cat Jarman.
He said: ‘I’m married to a very fabulous woman – she’s Norwegian and very direct – and every time we’ve heard of another tsunami of criticism, she just goes “you’re right, they’re wrong, and Diana would be proud”, and that’s it.’
He added that he had ‘every right to write about my sister’, joking: ‘I can tell you what Diana would have liked, and it’s sort of 350 pages of compliments, and she loved a compliment!’
Asked if the coverage of his book had been a surprise, the Earl said he had expected it to be ‘controversial’, saying he was inspired by how ‘brave’ Diana was during the press coverage she endured in her lifetime, which was ‘way worse than I’m getting this week’.
He also addressed the row he had entered with Piers Morgan, after he claimed in the book that Morgan had ‘snarled with annoyance’ when told he was not invited to Diana’s funeral.
The allegation is part of an anecdote told by Spencer about his decision to uninvite all national newspaper editors from the funeral. Morgan was editor of the Mirror at the time.
Spencer also wrote that he ‘assumed Morgan must be feeling particular guilt because, four years earlier, he and his Sunday Mirror counterpart’ published photos of Diana ‘taken with hidden cameras’.
But the pictures, which showed Diana in a leotard working out at the gym, were published in the Sunday Mirror in 1993 while Morgan was still working at The Sun. He joined the Mirror as editor in 1995.
Morgan has since threatened to sue Spencer over ‘fabricated inaccuracies’ and ‘examples of brazen falsity’ in Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which has been serialised by the Daily Mail.
Spencer told Lorraine: ‘Unlike some journalists, who we know of, I’m very happy to apologise. I made a small error and I’ve apologised, and it will be put right in the second edition, and that’s it.’
