Buckingham Palace issued a rare and pointed public statement rebuking allegations by Princess Diana's brother that King Charles dismissed her memory days before her 1997 funeral, a charge the Palace suggests is distorted by decades of grief.
Earl Charles Spencer's forthcoming book, "Swan Song: Diana, My Sister," contains an explosive claim: that the then-Prince of Wales hissed, "Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough!" in a phone call with Spencer in the days before Diana's funeral. The allegation, first published in a Daily Mail excerpt on September 16, prompted a response from the Palace that multiple outlets described as unusually forceful for an institution that typically declines to comment on books.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson told the BBC:
"While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is 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."
That statement did not directly deny the alleged quote. But its framing was unmistakable: the Palace cast Spencer's account as the product of a grieving brother's unreliable memory, not a credible historical record. The phrasing, "cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory", stopped just short of calling Spencer's recollection false while making clear the Crown does not accept it as fact.
Spencer's book, due for release September 22 from Penguin Press, covers far more than a single phone call. In the excerpted passages, Spencer wrote that Charles "unleashed down the phone what I have always taken to be his pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death." Spencer said he responded, "I can't believe you just said that," and hung up.
The dispute that triggered the alleged exchange centered on whether Prince William, then 15, and Prince Harry, then 12, would walk behind their mother's coffin in the funeral procession. Spencer wrote that a senior aide to Queen Elizabeth informed him the boys would take part. Spencer says he replied, "That's not going to happen."
Minutes later, according to the book, Charles called Spencer directly. Charles allegedly cited his own experience walking in the funeral procession for his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten in 1979 as precedent. When Spencer pointed out that Charles had been 30 years old at the time, far older than Diana's young sons, Charles allegedly "went nuts," according to Spencer's account.
The image of two grieving boys walking behind their mother's coffin became one of the most iconic and debated moments of the funeral. Spencer's claim that he tried to prevent it, and that Charles pushed for it, adds a new layer to a nearly three-decade-old controversy. But the Palace's response makes clear that King Charles's side does not accept Spencer's version of events.
Spencer framed the book as a corrective. In a Penguin Press news release dated August 20, he said he wanted to "speak on Diana's behalf and do so in an openly positive way." He added:
"This has convinced me to write down my own thoughts and memories, once and for all, rather than having the discomfort of again reading the opinions of others, many of which are based on untruths that have become accepted over time."
Spencer said the approaching 30th anniversary of Diana's death in August 2027 inspired the project. Princess Diana died on August 31, 1997, at the age of 36, after a car carrying her, boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed, and bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones crashed into another vehicle and a pillar inside Paris's Pont de l'Alma tunnel. Al-Fayed and driver Henri Paul, who was found to be intoxicated, died at the scene. Diana died of her injuries hours later in a hospital.
The book arrives at a moment when King Charles has already been dealing with sustained public friction from within his own family. Prince Harry's own memoir and media appearances in recent years opened similar wounds, and the Palace has had to manage a steady stream of family grievances aired before global audiences.
Spencer's allegations differ from Harry's in one important respect: Spencer is not a member of the royal household, and his claims center on events from 1997 that have no living witnesses beyond the participants themselves. That makes the Palace's choice to respond publicly all the more notable. Buckingham Palace does not typically dignify book-length accusations with official statements.
Adding an unusual wrinkle, Penguin Random House confirmed to USA TODAY on September 16 that four copies of "Swan Song" were allegedly stolen from a parked truck in the Netherlands while being transported from the printer to a warehouse. The publisher did not say whether the copies had been recovered or whether any suspect had been identified.
The theft, if confirmed, raises the question of whether additional excerpts could surface before the book's official September 22 release. The Daily Mail is already serializing passages, with more expected in the coming days.
The broader royal family has faced no shortage of public disputes in recent years. King Charles and Prince William have stood united in drawing firm boundaries around who represents the Crown, even as those decisions have generated their own headlines.
Spencer's book does not appear to address the more recent royal rifts involving Harry and Meghan. Its focus, based on the published excerpts, is squarely on the days surrounding Diana's death and what Spencer describes as Charles's private behavior during that period.
Still, the timing is hard to separate from the larger pattern. The monarchy has spent years managing family members who believe the institution failed Diana, Prince Harry has pointed the finger at his father on multiple occasions, and Spencer's book reopens the original wound.
King Charles has not personally addressed the specific quotes Spencer attributes to him. The Palace statement, delivered through a spokesperson to the BBC, remains the only official response. It neither confirmed nor denied the alleged "we'll forget her soon enough" remark. It simply suggested that Spencer's grief may have reshaped his memory over 29 years.
That leaves readers to weigh a single person's recollection of a private phone call against the institutional credibility of the Crown, with no recordings, no third-party witnesses, and no documentary evidence cited by either side.
Spencer's divorce from Charles was finalized in 1996, a year before Diana's death. The brothers-in-law were no longer family in a legal sense when the funeral dispute allegedly occurred, which may explain the rawness Spencer describes. Prince William has since taken on an increasingly prominent role representing the Crown at state occasions, a visible sign of institutional continuity that contrasts sharply with the family fractures playing out in bookstores.
Whether "Swan Song" reshapes public opinion about King Charles or simply adds another chapter to a family saga that has consumed tabloid oxygen for three decades will depend on what the remaining serialized excerpts contain, and whether the Palace decides this one statement is enough.
Nearly thirty years after Diana's death, the people closest to her are still fighting over who failed her and who gets to tell the story. The Crown broke its own rule of silence to push back. That alone tells you how seriously it takes the charge.
