Buckingham Palace responds to Charles Spencer’s Diana claims

Britain’s King Charles III took the unusual step on Wednesday of responding to criticism from the brother of his late first wife, Diana, saying through a spokesperson that grief can affect reason, judgment and memory, Reuters reported.

The claims by Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, appear in a forthcoming book and concern the monarch’s behavior in the days following the Princess of Wales’s death in 1997, CE Report quotes AGERPRES.

Princess Diana died at the age of 36 when the car carrying her and her boyfriend, Dodi al-Fayed, crashed in Paris while speeding away from paparazzi pursuing them on motorcycles.

Spencer claims in his forthcoming memoir that Charles, then Prince of Wales, told him, “Rest assured, we will forget her quite quickly,” according to an article in the Daily Mail, which is due to begin serializing the book on Thursday.

The alleged remark was made during a dispute over whether Diana and Charles’s sons, William and Harry, should walk behind their mother’s coffin during the funeral procession, a move Spencer opposed, according to the report.

Diana became one of the world’s most photographed women after marrying Charles in a lavish ceremony in 1981. Their marriage later deteriorated, and the couple divorced in 1996.

Asked about the Daily Mail article, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said:

“While as a matter of principle we do not comment on books, His Majesty is mindful that a brother’s grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and influence memories in ways that others may not recognize, even many years after such a loss.”

Ahead of the book’s release, Spencer said:

“The purpose of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective… I want to speak for Diana and to do so in an open and positive way.”

Photo: Chat GPT