King Charles III allegedly told Earl Spencer, brother of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, that “rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough” in a heated telephone conversation before her funeral, according to extracts from Spencer’s forthcoming memoir.
Spencer made the claim in Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which is due to be published next week.
The memoir, which examines his relationship with Diana and her life and death, has already triggered controversy over several allegations concerning the royal family.
According to Spencer, the conversation took place after Diana died in a car crash in Paris in 1997.
He also claims that Charles sounded “giddily elated – like a lottery winner” when he spoke to him immediately after her death.
The Earl further alleges that some people within Buckingham Palace were “relieved – indeed pleased” by Diana’s death.
He said he suspected that Charles’s first thought was how he could marry Camilla Parker Bowles, who is now Queen Camilla.
Spencer also claimed that palace officials wanted him, Prince William and Prince Harry to walk behind Diana’s coffin during her funeral because Charles was “adamant” that he would take part in the procession and officials feared members of the public could shout abuse at him.
By having Diana’s sons accompany the coffin, Spencer wrote, “that would surely guarantee against insults flying”.
Buckingham Palace rejected the claims in the memoir, saying it did not comment on books as a matter of principle.
However, it added that Charles was mindful that “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss.”
Spencer, 62, also made further claims about Diana’s marriage to Charles, saying she had confided that, shortly before their wedding, Charles told her “she needed to know he was very happy to marry her, but he was not actually in love with her”.
He wrote that Diana was convinced Charles was “entering their marriage with his heart elsewhere” and claimed she once considered ending their engagement after discovering a bracelet Charles had bought for Camilla.
The memoir also contains Spencer’s account of Diana’s struggles with an eating disorder and his belief that Charles may have contributed to it.
He claimed her waist reduced from 29 inches to 23.5 inches between her engagement and wedding after Charles allegedly commented, “Oh, a bit chubby here, aren’t we?”
Spencer said he believed Diana had ADHD and, like him, experienced Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. He also wrote that she had driven herself to Beachy Head while contemplating suicide but stopped because of her love for her sons.
He recalled Diana telling him she intended to divorce Charles and that “my husband is in love with his valet”.
Spencer said he wrote the memoir to correct what he described as “untruths” told about his elder sister.
The controversy surrounding the book came as Prince Harry attended the inaugural Invictus Spirit Awards in London on Thursday.
Harry, who was reportedly aware of the memoir before its publication but not its contents, made his first public appearance since returning to the UK from the US last month.
Meanwhile, the Prince and Princess of Wales visited the Isle of Bute in Scotland, while Charles attended an AI summit at Dumfries House in Ayrshire, where he warned of the potential dangers of artificial intelligence falling into the wrong hands.
