Royal family latest: Earl Spencer feels ‘eternal regret’ for failing to stop Bashir’s interview with Diana

Earl Spencer has said his renowned funeral eulogy, in which he said his sister’s qualities would never be “extinguished from our minds”, was a “direct rebuttal” of the prince’s comments.

Princess Diana’s brother has claimed that then-prince Charles said “we’ll forget her [Diana] soon enough” as part of a “stream of anger” over the phone prior to her funeral.

He told the BBC that his recollection of the now king’s comments “will not be a surprise” to Prince Harry and Prince William.

Earl Spencer’s bombshell memoir is set to be released on Tuesday after a week of allegations being released through serialisation in The Mail.

So far, the Earl has made claims about King Charles’ behaviour around his ex-wife’s death before he was king.

• The then-prince said “we’ll forget her soon enough” after Diana died in a “stream of anger” after the Earl protested to the idea that William and Harry should walk in the procession.
• Charles “sounded giddily elated – like a lottery winner” in a phone call to the Earl following Diana’s car crash.
• The Earl also told of his memories of the funeral, and his concern for Harry, after he observed a “lack of obvious care” for the then 12-year-old prince.

Earl Spencer has also spoken to the BBC where he doubled down on claims made in the memoir.

He also opened up about the Martin Bashir scandal and Diana’s relationship with the disgraced former owner of Harrods, Mohammed Al Fayed, father of her partner Dodi.

Speaking about the book last month, Earl Spencer said: “With the 30th anniversary of Diana’s tragic death on the skyline, I’ve been inundated yet again with requests for interviews about my sister.

“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.

“The aim of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective, just as I attempted to do when speaking at her funeral.

“As with my eulogy, I want to speak on Diana’s behalf and do so in an openly positive way.

“I hope this book will be of interest to the many who still cherish the memory of Diana when she was alive, and I would be delighted if those too young to remember her in her heyday feel – after reading this – that they ‘get’ who she really was: a one-off dynamic character, full of love, charisma and self-doubt, who gave life a hell of a go, and left the world a better place, despite exiting the stage while still so young.”

On his motivations for writing the book, the earl told the BBC this week it was his “duty… as an eyewitness to history”.

In response to the claims made in the memoir, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said last Wednesday: “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.”

Earl Spencer has implied there are family secrets which have still been “left unsaid’ despite the explosive revelations of his new memoir.

In his interview with BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, she said: “Maybe, as maybe in every, some family secrets are better left unsaid.”

He responded: “They certainly are, and they have been left unsaid.”

When asked if he will say more, he said: “Nope, that’s it. That’s me done.”

Earl Spencer has confessed he felt “eternal regret” for failing to stop Martin Bashir’s controversial interview with Princess Diana.

“It is to my eternal regret that what I saw as my clear warnings to Diana about Bashir failed to see him off,” the Earl writes in his new book, set to be released on Tuesday.

An independent inquiry would later reveal that the former journalist used “deceitful methods” and breached BBC editorial conduct to obtain the interview.

The Earl has written: “I thought I had said enough after he left the secret meeting in my friend’s flat. But, clearly, I had not. He managed to slide back into Diana’s life, ensnaring her with lies and manipulation.”