Diana’s Brother Accuses King Charles of ‘Gaslighting’ Him — but Praises Kristen Stewart for Capturing Princess

The brother of the late Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales told the legendary editor Tina Brown that his sister would have been “happy” — and presumably alive — if she had never married King Charles on a warm July day 45 years ago. Those remarks were delivered in an interview between Ms. Brown and Earl Spencer marking the release of his book, “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister.” The colloquy, which unfolded in front of an audience of hundreds, was attended on Tuesday by The New York Sun at Saint Peter’s Church on Manhattan’s West Side.Ms. Brown, who edited Tatler, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, the Daily Beast and Talk, is herself something of an authority on the late princess — her “Diana Chronicles” was a bestseller. She and Earl Spencer first met four decades ago at a somewhat inauspicious occasion — the marriage of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson. Ms. Brown recalled that at Diana’s funeral Earl Spencer delivered a eulogy that “took a blowtorch to the frozen faces” of the Royal Family.That eulogy at Westminster Cathedral forms the center of “Swan Song,” which Earl Spencer calls the “work that really matters to me” because it aims to capture “a one-off, dynamic character, full of love, charisma, and self-doubt, who gave life a hell of a go — his sister, Diana. Earl Spencer tells Ms. Brown that delivering that eulogy — which took square aim at the House of Windsor — was so exhausting that he had “to use the base of my diaphragm to punch out the last few sentences.” In his eulogy at Diana’s funeral Lord Spencer vowed that “we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition, but can sing openly as you planned.” He lamented how a “girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age.” Earl Spencer and Tina Brown in conversation, New York City, September 29, 2026. A.R. Hoffman for The New York SunEarl Spencer told the crowd at Saint Peter’s that immediately after the funeral Queen Elizabeth offered to restore the “HRH” honorific to Diana that had been stripped during their divorce. Her brother refused, though he told Ms. Brown of his uncertainty whether that was correct. He averred, though, that the humiliation dealt to Diana “was a massive miscalculation because the people had decided they loved Diana” and her “unique brand of magic.” Earl Spencer, who has been so unsparing in his account of King Charles’s behavior in the wake of Diana’s death that he prompted a rare response from Buckingham Palace, related to Ms. Brown that Queen Elizabeth II’s response to his eulogy was characterized by “graciousness.” Ms. Brown retorted, though, that her reporting uncovered that the Windsors were “incandescently” angry about Earl Spencer’s speech. Earl Spencer called the Crown’s reaction “aggressive.” Anger also flared before the funeral, when Earl Spencer pushed back on the Crown’s request that Princes William and Harry walk behind their mother’s coffin. The then-Prince of Wales flew into a rage at the temerity of Lord Spencer to contradict him, before declaring with respect to Diana that “we’ll forget her soon enough.” Earl Spencer told Ms. Brown that “I’ve only had two phone calls from the Prince of Wales in my life. I can remember them very well. I’m sure he can remember someone hanging up on him, because it probably doesn’t happen very often.” Buckingham Palace responded to those claims in a rare statement, noting that the “pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory.” Lord Spencer explained to Ms. Brown that the statement did not amount to a denial of his claims, but instead amounted to “gaslighting.” That drew raucous applause from the audience at Saint Peter’s Church. Earl Spencer appeared to be break a bit of news when he told the crowd that the television personality Piers Morgan would not be suing him for a mistake in the memoir that implied that Mr. Morgan was behind the publication by the Daily Mirror in 1994 of photographs of Diana working out at a gym. Mr. Morgan joined the tabloid the following year. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince William, the 9th Earl Charles Spencer, Prince Harry, and Prince Charles, walk behind the funeral cortege, at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales on September 6, 1997 at Westminster Abbey. David Levenson/Getty ImagesIn response to that denial Mr. Morgan published letters between his attorneys and the lawyers for Earl Spencer’s publisher in which Mr. Morgan threatens legal action over what he calls “false and damaging claims.” Penguin Books replied that their client has “publicly acknowledged” the error, which it denies is defamatory in any event. Penguin rejects the “mistaken basis that a factual error necessarily provides grounds for a viable defamation claim.” One member of the audience asked Earl Spencer if any fictional depictions of his sister captured something close to her essence. He averred that he has never seen “The Crown,” but that the actress Kristen Stewart’s portrayal in “Spencer” provided a performance that shocked him by its verisimilitude. He judged the movie as a whole, though, to be “terrible.”

Diana’s Brother Accuses King Charles of ‘Gaslighting’ Him — but Praises Kristen Stewart for Capturing Princess

Diana’s Brother Accuses King Charles of ‘Gaslighting’ Him — but Praises Kristen Stewart for Capturing Princess

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