Charles Spencer has said he still regrets not doing more to protect his sister, Diana, from the pressures of public life, admitting he believes he “probably could” have offered greater help.
The 62-year-old Earl Spencer made the comments in interviews linked to his memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, as attention turns towards the 30th anniversary of Diana’s death in 2027.
Speaking at Althorp, the Spencer family estate in Northamptonshire where Diana is buried, he said he had supported her during the final years of her life but continued to question whether he should have intervened more forcefully.
“Could I have done more to help her with her public life? I probably could,” he said.
Spencer said he had experienced his own disputes with the media and had helped Diana win a major libel case against a British newspaper. “I would fight some battles for her quietly,” he said.
Diana died aged 36 after a car crash in Paris in August 1997, a year after her divorce from the then-Prince Charles.
Spencer also rejected what he described as a false claim that he had refused to give Diana a home at Althorp after her divorce. He said she had asked to live with her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, at Garden House on the estate.
He said the property had appealed to Diana because their sister, Lady Jane Fellowes, had previously lived there with her children. However, Spencer said local police assessed the house and concluded that protecting Diana and her sons there would not be practical.
“The local police went around there with me and they said, they just couldn’t protect William and Harry,” he said. “She could not have lived at the Garden House. It was not a viable option.”
Diana instead remained at Kensington Palace after the end of her marriage.
The memoir has also renewed scrutiny of the relationship between Diana, her brother and the royal family. Spencer has made claims about events surrounding her marriage and death that have been disputed by Buckingham Palace, including an alleged remark by the then-Prince Charles during an argument over funeral arrangements: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.”
