Nearly three decades after Princess Diana’s death,
one of the most painful chapters in the royal family’s history has once again
become the subject of intense debate.
This time, the controversy centres on Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,
the memoir by Diana’s younger brother, Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer.
The book has attracted widespread attention for its
deeply personal account of Diana’s life, her relationship with the royal family
and the events surrounding her death in Paris in August 1997.
Among its most disputed passages is Spencer’s
recollection of a telephone conversation with Diana’s former husband,
then-Prince Charles, shortly after the fatal crash.
Spencer wrote that Charles sounded “giddily elated —
like a lottery winner,” a description that has prompted strong reactions from
people who were present around the royal family at the time.
One of those people is Paul Burrell, who served as
Diana’s butler for years and was in Paris following her death.
Burrell says his memory of Charles that day could
hardly have been more different.
Paul Burrell served as Princess Diana's butler until her death in 1997
(Photo by Antony Jones/UK Press via Getty Images)
Paul Burrell remembers a very
different Prince Charles
Burrell joined the household of the then-Prince and
Princess of Wales in 1987 and remained closely associated with Diana until her
death.
Over the years, he has written extensively about his
experiences working for the Princess and has described the close relationship
he believed they developed.
Now, decades later, Burrell has publicly challenged
Spencer’s account of Charles’s reaction.
Speaking on Piers
Morgan Uncensored, Burrell said he was in Paris and saw Charles
personally after Diana’s death.
His recollection was of a man who appeared devastated
rather than elated.
Burrell described Charles as “a broken man” and
recalled seeing signs that he had been crying, including bloodshot eyes. The
account was also reported by The
Independent, which noted that Burrell said he had never seen
Charles in that condition before.
For Burrell, the contrast between his own memory and
Spencer’s description is central to the controversy surrounding the memoir.
“I don't recognise what Earl Spencer says about
Prince Charles,” Burrell said during the interview.
His account does not establish what Charles actually
felt privately at the time. It does, however, demonstrate how differently
people who witnessed the aftermath of Diana’s death remember those
extraordinary days.
And that difference in recollection is becoming one
of the defining themes of the debate surrounding Spencer’s book.
What Earl Spencer says happened
after Diana’s death
Spencer’s account comes from his own recollection of
an extraordinarily traumatic period.
In Swan
Song: Diana, My Sister, he describes receiving a call from Charles
after the Paris crash.
According to Spencer, the tone of the conversation
struck him as unusually matter-of-fact compared with the reactions of other
people who contacted him.
He recalled that Charles sounded “giddily elated —
like a lottery winner.”
The passage quickly became one of the most widely
reported sections of the memoir because of what it appeared to suggest about
Charles’s state of mind after Diana’s death.
Importantly, the description is Spencer’s recollection of the
conversation, rather than an independently established account
of Charles’s feelings.
That distinction matters because memories of
traumatic events can differ dramatically, particularly when decades have
passed.
Buckingham Palace has previously responded to some of
the memoir’s claims by pointing to the way grief can affect memory and
perception over time.
The disagreement therefore goes beyond a simple
question of who is telling the truth.
It raises a much larger question about how Princess
Diana’s story is remembered — and who gets to define the meaning of events that
happened nearly 30 years ago.
Another former royal aide offers a
different recollection
Burrell is not the only former royal staff member to
dispute Spencer’s characterization of Charles.
Dickie Arbiter, who worked as a Buckingham Palace
press secretary during the period and had extensive contact with the royal
family, has also described Charles as devastated following Diana’s death.
Arbiter has said Charles appeared deeply shocked and
emotionally affected by what had happened.
He also recalled seeing Charles before and after his
trip to Paris and described his appearance and body language as evidence of
profound distress.
Arbiter has directly rejected the suggestion that
Charles could have behaved as Spencer describes.
His intervention is significant because, like
Burrell, he was a member of the royal household during the period and had
direct access to events surrounding the aftermath of Diana’s death.
But his account remains an eyewitness recollection
rather than definitive proof of what Charles privately thought or felt.
That distinction is particularly important when
examining historical events through memoirs written decades later.
The former servant opened up to Piers Morgan (Credit/YouTube: Piers
Morgan Uncensored)
Why Diana’s 1997 death remains so
contested
Princess Diana’s death became one of the most
consequential moments in modern British royal history.
She was 36 when she died after the Paris car crash in
the early hours of August 31, 1997.
Her funeral was watched by millions around the world,
while the emotional reaction to her death transformed the public atmosphere
surrounding the monarchy.
Prince William was 15 and Prince Harry was 12.
For the two young princes, the loss was deeply
personal. For the wider public, Diana’s death also became the subject of
intense debate about the monarchy, the media and the extraordinary level of
attention surrounding her private life.
That combination has ensured that almost every new
account from someone who knew Diana continues to attract enormous interest.
Spencer’s memoir arrives in that long-running
conversation with the unique position of being written by Diana’s brother.
His perspective is therefore personal, familial and
shaped by his own experiences of the years before and after her death.
Other people who knew Diana, meanwhile, have memories
that do not always align with his.
The result is a complicated historical record in
which different witnesses describe the same period in dramatically different
ways.
The Piers Morgan dispute adds
another layer
The controversy surrounding Swan Song is not
limited to Spencer’s description of Charles.
The memoir also contains claims about broadcaster
Piers Morgan and the publication of photographs of Diana taken at a gym in the
early 1990s.
Morgan has strongly disputed Spencer’s account and
has threatened legal action.
Spencer subsequently apologised after acknowledging
an error concerning the timing of Morgan’s employment. Morgan was working at The Sun in 1993 and
did not become editor of the Daily
Mirror until 1995.
The disagreement has become significant because
Spencer himself has emphasized the importance of accuracy in his work as a
historian.
The legal dispute means that some aspects of the
memoir are now being examined not simply as historical recollections but
through the lens of potential defamation claims.
That has increased attention on the book well beyond
the royal family itself.
Earl Spencer has come under fire after he published his latest book
(Photo by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
Why the memoir has reopened old
questions about King Charles
At the heart of the debate is an uncomfortable
question: how should the public interpret competing recollections of a royal
marriage and its aftermath?
Spencer's book presents his perspective as Diana’s
brother.
Burrell offers the perspective of someone who worked
closely with Diana and was present around Charles after her death.
Arbiter brings the viewpoint of a former senior
Palace communications figure who also witnessed Charles during those days.
None of those perspectives should automatically be
treated as a complete historical record.
Instead, they show how differently people can
remember the same extraordinary period.
Spencer has defended the broader purpose of his
memoir, presenting it as an attempt to tell his sister’s story and explore
experiences that he believes were not fully understood at the time.
Recent coverage has also highlighted other
revelations from the book, including Spencer’s reflections on Diana’s marriage,
her unhappiness and the emotional difficulties surrounding her years in the
royal family.
The result is a memoir that has once again placed
Diana at the centre of public conversation.
The enduring struggle over
Princess Diana’s legacy
There is another reason the controversy has attracted
so much attention.
Princess Diana’s public image has changed repeatedly
since her death.
To some, she remains a symbol of compassion,
humanitarian work and a more informal approach to royal life.
To others, her story represents the intense pressure
created by celebrity, the British media and the expectations placed on members
of the monarchy.
Her sons have also spent decades navigating the
consequences of losing their mother in such a public way.
As Diana’s 30th death anniversary approaches in 2027,
interest in her life and legacy is likely to remain substantial.
Recent reporting has already suggested that both
William and Harry are considering different ways of marking the anniversary,
while William has reportedly been reluctant to participate in projects that
could reopen family tensions.
That makes Spencer’s memoir particularly significant.
It has arrived at a moment when the royal family is
once again being asked to revisit one of the most painful chapters of its
history.
A story where memories remain
sharply divided
Perhaps the most revealing part of the dispute is
that there is no single perspective that can fully capture what happened inside
the royal family in the aftermath of Diana’s death.
Charles Spencer remembers a telephone conversation in
a particular way.
Paul Burrell remembers seeing Charles in Paris and
describes a profoundly distressed man.
Dickie Arbiter recalls similar signs of grief.
Those accounts cannot all be reduced to a simple
headline.
They represent different people observing an
extraordinary event from different positions, with different relationships to
Diana and Charles and with memories formed nearly three decades ago.
What is clear is that Spencer’s memoir has reopened
questions many people thought had already been settled.
And because Princess Diana remains one of the most
closely scrutinised figures in modern royal history, even a single disputed
memory can become part of a much larger debate about her life, her family and
the monarchy she left behind.
The author has been forced to apologise for a mistake he made in the
new memoir (Photo by Peter Nicholls/Getty Images)
Why the Diana story continues to
attract global attention
Few royal stories have demonstrated the staying power
of Diana’s legacy.
Her life continues to influence discussions about royal family history,
celebrity culture,
media ethics,
public scrutiny,
family relationships
and the personal cost of living under constant attention.
Her death also remains an emotional reference point
for William and Harry, whose childhood memories of their mother have inevitably
shaped their adult lives.
That is why new revelations from people who knew Diana
continue to generate enormous public interest.
But the latest dispute also demonstrates the
importance of separating a memoirist's recollection from independently
established historical fact.
Spencer's account is one perspective.
Burrell's account is another.
Arbiter's recollection provides yet another.
The differences between them are precisely what has
made Swan Song
such a closely watched publication.
The questions that remain after 29
years
Nearly three decades after Diana's death, the public
is still trying to understand what happened during those extraordinary days.
Was Spencer’s recollection of his conversation with
Charles an accurate reflection of the then-Prince’s tone?
Did Charles’s private emotions differ from what
witnesses observed publicly?
How much can anyone reliably reconstruct from
conversations remembered almost 30 years later?
And how should Diana’s family history be understood
when the people who experienced it remember key moments so differently?
Those questions are unlikely to disappear quickly.
For now, the most responsible reading of the
controversy is to recognize that the competing accounts remain just that — competing recollections of an
intensely emotional period.
What the latest dispute ultimately reveals may be
less about settling one moment in 1997 and more about the enduring difficulty
of separating memory, grief and history when the subject is Princess Diana.
Several sources have claimed Prince Charles was
'devastated' after the death of Princess Diana (Tom Stoddart Archive)
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