Prince Harry and Prince William both refused to answer questions about their uncle’s explosive new memoir.
The brothers’ silence came as Charles Spencer, 62, released “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister” worldwide on Tuesday, a book that delivers blistering claims about the royal family his late sister married into. Harry, 42, was the first to face a direct question about the memoir when he arrived at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London on Monday for the WellChild Awards. A reporter called out to the Duke of Sussex as he exited his vehicle: “Have you spoken to your uncle in the last few days?” The “Spare” author did not respond and continued into the hotel.
The following day, William, 44, received similar treatment at the ActOne Cinema, where he appeared to celebrate the British film industry. A reporter asked the Prince of Wales: “So, how do you feel about your uncle’s book? How do you like it?” William ignored the question entirely as he continued inside the venue.
Spencer’s memoir contains some of the most damaging allegations yet about King Charles III’s private reaction to Diana’s 1997 death. The 9th Earl Spencer claimed the monarch, then Prince of Wales, allegedly “sounded giddily elated — like a lottery winner” upon learning of the activist’s fatal car crash in Paris. Spencer wrote that he now suspects Charles’s first thought was “to think more of how this event might free him to marry the woman he loved, rather than appreciating the loss of one he did not,” referring to Camilla, whom Charles wed in 2005.
The book also details a phone confrontation years later, when Charles allegedly threw a tantrum over Spencer’s refusal to have William and Harry, then pre-teens, walk behind their mother’s coffin at her funeral. Spencer writes 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.”
“‘Rest assured,'” Spencer quotes Charles as hissing, “‘we’ll forget her soon enough!'”
The brothers’ refusal to engage with questions about the book follows a well-established pattern for the royal family, which typically avoids responding directly to controversial publications. Harry’s own memoir, “Spare,” published in 2023, similarly detailed painful family rifts and became one of the fastest-selling nonfiction books ever. The parallel silences from both brothers this week suggest no public reconciliation with their maternal uncle’s account is forthcoming.
Spencer has previously spoken about his opposition to the funeral procession arrangement, revealing in past interviews that he had argued against it. His new book expands those revelations into a broader indictment of the royal family’s treatment of his sister during and after her marriage.
