Earl Spencer has described Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as “just regular people at heart” while defending the Duke's decision to move his family back to the UK from America.
Speaking in a US interview to promote his memoir about his late sister Diana, Princess of Wales, he said it was “normal” Harry would want to return to Britain.
“I think what's interesting is, you forget, these are just regular people at heart, and this English guy's lived in California - he wants to live in England. Seems normal,” he said.
An 'elderly uncle' to Harry's family
The Earl said he saw himself as “just an elderly uncle who's there if needed”, adding that Harry and his family had stayed with his family this summer before their move back to the UK.
“If I'm of any use for things like that, that's fine,” he added.
However, he said he had told neither Harry nor his brother William that he was writing a book about their mother until just before it was publicly announced.
“I took a conscious decision that this was very much my story, my responsibility,” the Earl said. “I thought if I told my family, my sisters, my nephews, anyone else, they would all have a view as to content, and what I must include, and what I mustn't.”
He said he told relatives “on the day of the announcement before it went out so they got almost no warning”. Asked how William and Harry reacted, Earl Spencer refused to divulge private conversations but said it was “okay”.
“I mean, I think they're probably used to me sort of doing my own thing, and I made it absolutely clear to them, I haven't compromised either of your privacy at all,” he added.
Marrying into the monarchy 'tough'
The Earl - whose book explores his sister's ill-fated marriage to the then-future King Charles - said “certain people” found it “very difficult” to be part of the monarchy.
“I think if you grow up in a royal family it's a lot easier than marrying into it,” he added. “If you look at the wives of those who've married in, it's tough. It's a way of thinking that is very specific.”
The Earl's book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, infuriated King Charles and was branded “bulls***” by TV presenter Piers Morgan, who plans to sue.
Piers Morgan's legal threat
Controversial claims in the book include that the then-future King “sounded giddily elated” like a “lottery winner” when he called him after Princess Diana's 1997 death in a Paris car crash. The Earl claimed he hung up on Charles after the monarch-in-waiting told him “we'll forget her soon enough” in a later phone call.
The Earl said it came during a row over whether Princes William and Harry - then 15 and 12 - should walk behind their mother's coffin in her funeral procession. He said he told friends and family because Charles's behaviour was “so monstrous”.
Buckingham Palace denied the allegations. Morgan said if the allegations the Earl had made about him were demonstrably “false”, then: “What else can we trust?” He said he could prove the Earl's claim about him was “bulls***” and wants the book stripped from the shelves.
Morgan lashed out after discovering a passage in the memoir accused him of publishing pictures of Princess Diana in a leotard in The Mirror, which he edited from 1995 to 2004. He pointed out he was not working for the newspaper at the time, having been a showbiz columnist for a rival tabloid when the images were printed in 1993.
Spencer apologised for the factual error and issued a statement acknowledging “his assumption was incorrect”. But Morgan said it was not enough.
“I come across in the most despicable manner imaginable,” he said. “There's just one problem. It's all bulls*** and very, very easy bulls*** for me to prove it.”
“My question, though, is this. If Earl Spencer can be so incredibly, defamatorially wrong about such basic facts involving me, well, why should we believe anything else he puts in this book? I'm spitting blood about this.
“I mean he's made an egregious defamatory series of claims about me which had nothing to do with me. And all right, he's apologised, he's admitted that he was wrong. But that's not enough. I'm sorry.
“This book is out there now. It's going to sell a lot of copies. He's going to make millions and millions of pounds around the world hawking his story about his sister having vowed never to do that.
“We are sending a legal letter today. I may not be the only one because, you know, if he's done this to me, it was only after I checked the entries on me. Who else has he done this to?
“I don't think this book should be allowed to continue being out there to sell.”
