Buckingham Palace Issues 'Highly Unusual' Statement in Response to New Allegations from Princess Diana's Family
A Buckingham Palace statement is pushing back against a claim from the brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, that King Charles spoke disdainfully about his ex-wife immediately after her death.
In a new book, Charles Spencer wrote about the days after his sister was killed in a 1997 car crash at the age of 36, according to the Associated Press.
In the book, Spencer — who is often referred to by his title, Earl Spencer — said he argued with Charles over plans to have her sons, Prince William, then 15, and Prince Harry, then 12, walk behind her coffin, saying she would not have wanted that.
The book says Charles told him, “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.”
Spencer said Charles had “contempt” for Diana and sounded “elated” after she died.
Buckingham Palace said not all recollections are facts.
“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 color memory in ways others do not recognize, even many years after such a loss,” it said, according to the BBC.
Julian Payne, the monarch’s former communications secretary, said the comments attributed to Charles were “just not language that I recognize.”
He said the “highly unusual” statement demonstrated the “strength of feeling that there must have been for them to feel that they needed to go out there and correct it.”
Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, described the wording of the statement as “very strong,” according to the Associated Press.
“I can’t think of another occasion … in the recent history of royal communications which has been as stark as this one,” she said. “It’s obviously been said with a great deal of feeling.”
Charles and Diana, who married in a lavish, storybook ceremony in 1981, separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996.
According to an excerpt from the book in the Daily Mail, Charles supposedly “went nuts” after being told that although he walked in his uncle’s funeral, as he wanted his sons to do for their mother, he had been 30 at the time.
WORLD EXCLUSIVE
‘On the night Diana died Charles sounded giddily elated… like a lottery winner’
Read the book so raw and revealing it has started a war of words with the King. In searing detail, Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer recalls Charles’s behaviour in the hours and… pic.twitter.com/DWDfIHEYO1
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) September 17, 2026
“Prince Charles continued his stream of anger, without me interrupting. Then he stopped. I assumed the pause signalled an effort to bring himself under control, but then 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 excerpt said.
“‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough!’” the excerpt said.
In the book, Spencer said he was “so stunned” that he did not reply immediately.
‘“I can’t believe you just said that,’ I said flatly, before hanging up,” he wrote.
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