Queen 'asked what Diana had been up to' before learning crash was fatal, Earl Spencer claims
From the Newshound archive · first published 19 September 2026.
Earl Spencer insists King Charles said Diana would be "forgotten" and calls the remark "monstrous," adding: "I don't hear him saying he didn't say that.Prince Harry pictured with his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, whose brother's memoir claims King Charles sounded "giddily elated — like a lottery winner" when he rang Spencer hours after her 1997 death.Queen Elizabeth II, whose offer to restore Princess Diana's royal title on the day of her funeral was rejected by Earl Spencer as a meaningless "consolation prize," according to his new memoir.An Lochan Uaine in the Cairngorms. King Charles III's memoir battle with Earl Spencer includes the claim that he sounded "giddily elated — like a lottery winner" when he rang Spencer after Diana's death.
Earl Spencer has gone on the offensive against Buckingham Palace after it suggested grief had clouded his memory, telling BBC's Laura Kuenssberg at Althorp: "I can tell you here and now, those are exactly the words he said." The claim — that King Charles told him "we'll forget her soon enough" days after Diana's death in 1997 — is the explosive centrepiece of Spencer's memoir 'Swan Song: Diana, My Sister', reportedly being serialised in the Daily Mail.
Spencer told the BBC he was "hyper alert" during one of only two phone calls he ever had with Charles, calling the remark "monstrous."
He challenged the Palace's rare rebuttal directly: "Is he furious, or is he embarrassed? I don't hear him saying he didn't say that."
Spencer also revealed he immediately told family and friends what Charles had said at the time — "because it was so monstrous" — as evidence of his clear recall.
