"Rest assured, we will forget her quite quickly." Princess Diana's brother's memoirs sparked royal family outrage

According to Spencer, Charles was very angry after Diana's brother expressed doubts that her sons, 15-year-old William and 12-year-old Harry, should walk behind their mother's coffin during the funeral procession.

However, the words Spencer attributes to Charles caused the biggest scandal. In his book, he claims that during a phone call, the prince said of Diana:

"Rest assured, we will forget her quite quickly."

The memoirs, titled "Swan Song: Diana, My Sister," are set to be released in the UK next week. Before the book's release, the Daily Mail published excerpts that have already caused widespread reaction.

According to Spencer, the then-Prince of Wales expressed strong anger during the conversation after his remark about William and Harry's participation in the funeral procession. Spencer interpreted this reaction as a display of Charles's disrespect for Diana and annoyance that her death had caused such a strong public reaction.

Diana's death in 1997 was a very emotional event for Great Britain. She was extremely popular, and some of the public criticized the royal family for what they believed was insufficient empathy and a failure to understand public sentiment. At the funeral, Charles Spencer delivered an emotional and sharp speech that further amplified these sentiments.

In his new memoirs, he presents his own vision of those events. Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace has reacted unusually sharply to his version of the conversation.

A palace statement says that the King understands the pain of losing a sister, but that grief can affect the perception of events, the assessment of the situation, and memories even many years after a tragedy.

Former Charles's press secretary Julian Payne told the BBC that he does not recognize the current King in the words Spencer attributes to him. He also noted that Buckingham Palace's statement was very unusual and suggested that the royal family was so outraged by Spencer's claims that it felt it necessary to publicly question them.

A similar reaction from the royal family has been heard before. In 2021, Queen Elizabeth II, responding to accusations of racism from Prince Harry and Meghan, also noted that different people's memories of the same events can differ.

Princess Diana died in a car accident in Paris in 1997 at the age of 36. On July 1, 2026, she would have turned 65.

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