Watch: Did King Charles Say Princess Diana Would Be Forgotten After Her Death? Palace Reacts to Claim
A harmless joke made by Princess Diana has devastating undertones after her death.
In Charles Spencer’s new book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, the late Princess of Wales’ younger brother detailed his final memories with her, including an offhanded comment she made about flowers she received for her 36th birthday.
“Earlier that same day, one of my family send Diana a bouquet as a birthday gift,” Spencer recalled in one passage from the book, out now. “Diana wrote to thank them, with typically irreverent humor: ‘I’ve been so lucky! My house is so full of gorgeous flowers that the place looks like a funeral parlor!’”
Chillingly, Spencer recalled of the distant memory while he wrote her eulogy following her Aug. 31, 1997, “Now here I was, just two months later, trying to write something suitable for her funeral.”
Indeed, Spencer had also recounted his last encounter with his sister just two months before her fatal car accident in Paris, noting they had run into each other at the Tate Gallery in London by happenstance.
“Neither of us had any idea that the other was going to be at the evening,” he wrote. “We had only that brief chat, never to see each other again.”
Beyond his own memories of his sister and his grief following her death, the book also contains Spencer’s recollections of how others reacted to the tragedy. Notably, he recalled King Charles III’s reaction to his ex-wife’s untimely death while recounting a disagreement he had with the then-prince.
“Prince Charles continued his stream of anger, without me interrupting. Then he stopped,” Spencer wrote in another passage. “I assumed the pause signaled an effort to bring himself under control, but then he 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.”
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As Spencer remembered, Charles had told him, “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.”
For the royal family’s part, Buckingham Palace released a rare statement on behalf of Charles—dad to sons Prince William and Prince Harry with the late princess—sharing his reaction to Spencer’s book.
“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,” the Palace said in a statement to E! News, “affect judgment and color memory in ways others do not recognize, even many years after such a loss.”
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