Earl Spencer becomes emotional as Laura Kuenssberg presses him over controversial Diana memoir

Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer, became visibly emotional while recalling his childhood with Diana, Princess of Wales, during a BBC interview with Laura Kuenssberg at Althorp Estate in Northamptonshire.

The emotional exchange came as Kuenssberg questioned him about his new memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which contains disputed claims about the Royal Family and the events surrounding Diana’s death in 1997.

Earl Spencer recalls his childhood with Diana

During the interview, Kuenssberg asked Earl Spencer about his memories of growing up alongside his sister.

He looked back on their early years at Park House in Sandringham, Norfolk, describing them as a particularly happy period of his life despite the upheaval caused by his parents’ divorce.

“My memories of Diana tend to be from our happy childhood days, in our home before this, which was Park House in Sandringham, in Norfolk,” he said.

“Even though we had the rupture of my parents’ divorce, it was such a happy home. Just those days there, carefree days … not an instance, but a period of life.”

As he reflected on photographs of Diana as a child, Spencer became visibly upset.

“It really breaks me up when I look at old photographs of Diana as a child, and then think what happened to her, it’s terribly sad,” he said.

Kuenssberg then asked him directly how much he still missed his sister.

“Every day,” he replied. “That’s the thing with sibling loss, you never get over it.”

His eyes filled with tears as Kuenssberg allowed a long pause to follow his answer. Spencer did not elaborate.

The interview was filmed at Althorp, the Spencer family’s Northamptonshire estate, where Diana is buried.

The memoir that has reopened a dispute with King Charles

The emotional discussion about Diana came against the backdrop of a much wider controversy surrounding Spencer’s forthcoming book.

Swan Song: Diana, My Sister is due to be published on September 22, 2026. The memoir looks back at Diana’s life and death from the perspective of her younger brother, almost three decades after her death.

Among the most contentious passages concerns a phone conversation Spencer says he had with the then Prince Charles shortly after Diana’s death in 1997.

According to Spencer’s account, the conversation took place amid a disagreement over whether Princes William and Harry should walk behind their mother’s coffin during her funeral procession.

Spencer has said he strongly opposed the idea, arguing that Diana would not have wanted her sons to take part. He recalls receiving a call from Charles during the dispute and says the conversation became heated.

In his memoir, Spencer alleges that Charles told him: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.”

The claim has been rejected by Buckingham Palace, which issued an unusually pointed response.

The Palace said King Charles was mindful that “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgement and colour memory” even many years after a loss.

Spencer has repeatedly rejected the suggestion that grief caused him to misremember the conversation.

“Is he furious, or is he embarrassed?”

During the BBC interview, Kuenssberg confronted Spencer directly with the Palace’s statement.

She pointed out that Buckingham Palace rarely responds publicly to books in this way and asked him to address the suggestion that grief could have affected his recollection.

Spencer responded by questioning whether the King’s reaction was really anger.

“Well, is he furious, or is he embarrassed?” he said.

He then insisted that he remained certain about what had been said during the phone call.

“I’ve only ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life,” Spencer explained.

He said that because his conversations with Charles had been so limited, he had been particularly attentive to what was said.

“I was hyper-alert to what he was saying, and those are precisely the words that he said,” he continued.

Spencer added: “I promise that to you now. Genuinely, that is what he said. I don’t hear him saying he didn’t say that.”

When Kuenssberg asked whether the public should believe Spencer’s version of events or the King, Spencer gave a direct answer: he was “telling the truth”.

A book written nearly 30 years after Diana’s death

Spencer has described Swan Song as his attempt to put his own memories of Diana on record.

The book comes as the 30th anniversary of Diana’s death approaches. According to its publisher, Spencer was prompted to write after receiving repeated requests for interviews about his sister and becoming concerned that accounts of her life had been shaped by claims he considered untrue.

The memoir covers Diana’s childhood, her marriage to the then Prince of Wales, her public life and the final period before her death.

Spencer has also written about the aftermath of the fatal car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997, which killed Diana at the age of 36.

His account of the days following her death has attracted particular attention because it offers a deeply personal perspective on the tensions surrounding her funeral.

Spencer’s recollections have prompted a rare public response from Buckingham Palace, while he has continued to stand by his version of events.

The disagreement over what was said between the two men remains a matter of conflicting accounts. Spencer says he remembers the conversation clearly; the Palace has pointed to the possibility that grief can affect memory and judgement.

An emotional reminder of the sister behind the headlines

For all the controversy surrounding the memoir, the interview also offered a glimpse of the personal loss that continues to shape Spencer’s memories of Diana.

Away from the claims involving the Royal Family, his recollections returned repeatedly to their childhood together and to the photographs that still affect him.

His response to Kuenssberg’s simple question about whether he misses Diana was immediate: “Every day.”

Nearly three decades after Diana’s death, Spencer’s memoir has brought his memories of his sister back into the spotlight. The BBC interview showed that, beneath the arguments over his account of events in 1997, the subject remains deeply personal for him.