Earl Spencer has threatened to sue former Cabinet minister Michael Gove over a comment he made involving him and his late sister, Princess Diana, it has been claimed.
The earl has been dominating headlines after the release of his book about the late Princess of Wales. Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, released last month, contains various allegations and claims.
Those include one that King Charles allegedly told the earl, “Rest assured, we'll forget her [Diana] soon enough,” after the princess’s brother objected to her sons walking behind her coffin. Diana’s brother also alleged Charles, then the Prince of Wales, “sounded giddily elated – like a lottery winner” when he spoke to the earl after the princess’s death.
Backlash over book claims
His claims sparked a war of words with Buckingham Palace, who hit back saying “fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory”.
Meanwhile, the earl was in a row with Piers Morgan, after falsely claiming in his book that he was responsible for publishing, in the Daily Mirror in 1993, photographs taken with hidden cameras of Diana in a leotard working out at the gym.
The broadcaster was working at The Sun at the time and did not join the Mirror as its editor until 1995. He called on Diana’s brother to pulp the remaining copies of his book and instructed his lawyers to demand the work be pulled from sale immediately.
The earl apologised and said, as a historian, “accuracy was important to him”, but he stood by his account that Mr Morgan was “surly and annoyed” when he called the journalist to tell him he was not welcome at Diana’s funeral.
New legal battle with Michael Gove
Now, Charles Spencer is reportedly embroiled in a new legal battle with Michael Gove. According to the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden, in the Spectator magazine’s podcast, Lord Gove discussed the new book with assistant editor Madeline Grant, wife of a Church of England vicar.
The two allegedly made a series of claims about Lord Spencer, including that he was on “bad terms” with his sister when she was killed in a car crash in 1997, and that he was “monetising her death” by publishing the book. They also spoke about the infamous Althorp incident in 1993.
Now, the Earl has reportedly demanded that the podcast be removed from The Spectator's website.
Spencer's response
A spokesman told the outlet: “The Spectator's podcast claimed that in the summer of 1997 Diana asked her brother if she and her sons could stay with him to escape the Press, and that he said 'No' because the paparazzi would bother his family at Althorp. That is untrue. She never asked to stay that summer.”
“She would not have done, as Althorp was open to the public throughout the summer months. But had she asked, he would have done everything possible to make it happen.”
The late princess and her brother reportedly fell out after he refused to let her live at Althorp’s Garden House cottage in 1993, following her separation from Charles in 1992. It was reported that the earl’s refusal came amid security and paparazzi concerns as well as because the property was occupied by a staff member at the time. He said he offered his sister other options on the estate, but she declined.
The spokesman added: “Earl Spencer never turned his sister away. After her marriage broke down, and in line with police advice about her safety, he offered her a choice of a dozen homes on the Althorp estate, as well as Wormleighton Manor, the family's ancestral home.
“Earl Spencer has asked The Spectator to correct the record. People are entitled to whatever opinion they like of his book – they are not entitled to invent how he treated his sister.”
Lord Gove refused to comment to the outlet.
