The Earl Spencer Diana Interview

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1:00It's everything your business needs in one place, saving you time, headaches and serious money. Stop paying for missing pieces, go to odu.com. That's odu.com to learn more. Patty, as promised, what follows now in this episode of newscast is our full conversation with our old Spencer Princess Diana's brother who has very harsh words for the palace. And I should say there are two newscast episodes today. There's Laura's full interview with our Spencer and then there's our analysis with the BBC Senior Roll Correspondent, Daniela Ralph. So in your feed, the full interview and the episode discussing what it means is there too. You dedicate this book to everyone who, like you, has lost a brother or a sister. The difference for you is everyone knows how your sister died. But you've never really talked about those awful hours when the news came through, when

2:04the horror of what happened became clear. So let's go back in time. How did you find out? Well, I was living in South Africa at the time in Cape Town and I got a call in the middle of the night and it was my sister Jane and she said, don't worry, Diana's been in a car crush but it's not too serious. And I thought, okay, well, even if it's not serious, I can probably find out what's happening on the news. And then through the night I watched the TV news unfurling and then I kept getting more and more distressing calls from home from my sister. And then it escalated after a few hours to, I heard my brother and I were in the background who Robert Fellows used to work for the Queen as her private secretary and I heard him go, oh no. And then my sister Jane said, I'm afraid she's died. So that's how. So it started in my life in that night as a little prank and then it became a broken leg, perhaps a head injury and then death.

3:08And in your book you recount how you're a little girl, Eliza, said she's not dead in real life as she. Yeah. It was really heartbreaking. I was alone in the house with my four children who were very small at the time and my three little girls came tumbling through into the kitchen and Diana just been staying with us a few months earlier in Cape Town. So when I said I'm afraid I got this terrible news and they just looked up at me and I said, yes, I'm afraid Aunt Diana's died and that's what Eliza said, not in real life, Daddy. Utterly heartbreaking. But as you were making preparations to get back here to the family ancestral home all throughout, you had another call, a call from Prince Charles. Of course now the king. What did he say and how did he sound? Well, I was rushing around the house preparing the children and all of that sort of thing for the day ahead. And I put, I remember picking out the telephone, I was upstairs in my house in Cape Town and

4:08he was telling me how he had told the boys William and Harry at Bar Moral and broken the news to them. And I felt, as I say in the book actually, I felt there was sort of giddy tone. I'd had a lot of calls that day from people who cared, who were stunned like we all were. And I just felt there was a lightness in his tone about Diana's death that really jared with me. You write that he was giddily elated like a lottery winner. When you're suggesting he was somehow pleased that his former wife was dead? I, well, I'm reporting, every word in this book are report exactly as I saw it and felt it at the time. And I was surprised at the giddiness of his tone. That's what I'm recording there. It's an incredibly damning thing to say though about his reaction to the death of the mother of his children and you go on to write, I suspect the prince's reaction must have been

5:13to think more of how this event might free him to marry the woman he loved rather than appreciating the loss of the one he did not. You're suggesting there in black and white that the now king felt that Diana's death was rather convenient because he would be able to marry Camilla. That is how I felt at the time from the tone of his voice. So I've only ever had two calls from him and they were both around this time. One was on that day of Diana's death and one was a couple of days later. But are you sure that's what he was thinking? I mean, sure. I cannot be sure. I'm saying that's what I assume from the tone is a possibility and that's all I can do. As you mentioned, there was then a second call, another phone call between you and the former prince Charles as you were planning Diana's funeral. Now we know there were huge russians behind the scene at that time of massive grief, what

6:14kind of event should it be, who should be in charge. And there was an instruction from the palace that her two beloved boys should walk behind the coffin through the streets of London. You tried to stop that happening, but what happened in that conversation with Charles? I was having a phone conversation with a colonel from the household at Buckingham Palace. And as he was about to finish our conversation, he said, and it's been agreed that the two young princes were walking behind their mother's coffin. And I said, well, of course that's not going to happen. It just seemed so monstrous. And he said, well, it's been decided it will. And I said, but my sister wouldn't have wanted that. And he sort of coughed politely and the conversation came to an end. And then quite soon after that, a sort of dedicated phone line in my office went again. And it was the then prince of Wales saying, I gather you've got a problem with the funeral service.

7:15And I was thinking, no, I haven't, because I was thinking of the structure of the actual service in Westminster Abbey. And then he said, I gather you don't think William and Harry should walk behind Diana's coffin. And I said, well, of course not, sir. She wouldn't want it. And then he said, well, I walked behind Laura Baton's coffin. And I said, yes, but you were 30 and he wasn't your mother. And then to be, I mean, he went ballistic, would be the right term, and started really going for my family as a whole about their sense of duty, not being adequate enough, and granted for a while. I have no idea how long, but it was a significant period. And I just listened. And then he stopped and I thought, oh, now, now he's going to pull himself together and say something more appropriate. And then he said, we'll forget her soon enough. What went through your mind? Well, I'm not sure I can say exactly what went through my mind, but I really was so stunned.

8:17And I just, after a stunned silence, I said, I cannot believe you just said that. And I hung up on him. You know that Buckingham Palace has already said, with a degree of fury, that that didn't happen. But it hasn't actually, Laura. They've sort of smudged that one, haven't they? They said that recollections may vary. Well, let me read you exactly what the palace has said. They said, his majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment, and color memory in ways others do not recognize, even many years after such a loss. The king is plainly furious. Buckingham Palace almost never issues any kind of statement. Well, it's furious or is he embarrassed? Because I can tell you here and now, those are exactly the words he said.

9:20I've been here ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life. I was hyper alert to what he was saying. And those are precisely the words he said. And I promise that to you now, genuinely, that is what he said. I don't hear him saying he didn't say that. Did you write it down? Did you keep a diary? Do you have evidence that that is what he said at the time? Because to be fair, this was a time of massive shock and emotion for both of you. I told friends and family straight away, close friends and family about what had been said because it was so monstrous. And then beyond that, it very much informed. This was just before I really tackled the eulogy. You can see evidence of that conversation in the final eulogy. I really stress Diana's sense of duty. Duty comes across very clearly in the eulogy. And then it culminates in something which I think really underlines the truth of my assertion

10:23here. Which is, if you get to the final bit of my eulogy, it is that her fantastic qualities will never be extinguished from my mind. It was a direct rebuttal of Will Forgette, soon enough. Above all, we give thanks for the life of a woman. I'm so proud to be able to call my sister the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana, whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds. Which Charles are the public meant to believe? Are they to believe you? Or they to believe the king, the head of state of this country, who's giving the impression very forcefully that this didn't happen? Who are we to believe? Well, I'm telling the truth. So the king is giving an impression to the country that's not true misleading people,

11:24even lying? I can hardly be responsible for what Buckingham Palace says. All I can tell you is what was said and what I heard and what shocked me. What else would have made me hang up on the king that day? It was something as outrageous as that slur against Diana. What do you think that her sons, his sons, your nephews, who you vowed so publicly, so movingly to protect? Well think when they hear you saying that, revealing these words, nearly three decades on which you know are bound to stir up huge amounts of pain and anger. Well, I don't like to talk about what I've been speaking about to William and Harry, but this will not be a surprise to them. I will tell you that. These words will not be a surprise to them. But what are they to make of that? As human beings, you're telling the world their father said, don't worry, everyone will

12:28forget your dead mother. I have a duty. You know, I was an eyewitness to history and it's my duty in the final season of my life. This was very much a spur for me to write this now, was both my parents died in their 60s. I'm in my 60s. I'm aware of mortality and I wanted to just put things down once and for all that were true. And part of the spine of my book is the construction of my eulogy. I know this is not a threat, it's a fact. I know lots of things about the King, which I chose not to include in the book because they were not relevant. I'm a historian. I've worked for decent news organisations like yourself. And it was just my duty to lay it out. There is a reason why those words were in my eulogy and I have to give that reason. Sounds a bit like a threat if you're saying you know other things about the King that

13:29you'd be damaging to him. No, not a taller threat. It's just the reality. I want to give the context of what I said and what I didn't say. I'm not threatening. I've got no interest. I'm not a salacious writer on any level. But I just, the point being that if I was a salacious writer and wanted to write that sort of thing, I had plenty of other things I could have said and really have no interest in doing so. One of the other things that your sister told you as her marriage was breaking down, you recount a story where she says she's going to get divorced because, and I quote, my husband is in love with his valley. Now you say you never asked who that was or why she believed it, yet you have printed it, repeating what is an incendiary claim suggesting that the King, that now King was in

14:30love with, we assume would be a male member of staff. Do you believe that to be true? I know Diana said that to me and that's why I recorded it. So it's in the context of a conversation where Diana is telling me that her marriage is over and I remember it very well. She's a restaurant called San Lorenzo and in London and she said to me, Carlos, which is what she called me, I am going to get divorced and I knew her marriage was rocky but I had no idea that that was where she was headed. And so I just said to her, look, obviously I totally support whatever decision you've made. I know it's not a decision you'll have made lightly but I do worry, I said I do worry that the public will really be in a way angry with you for killing the fairy tale that they've all subscribed to and those are the words she said to me. You say though in the book it was an improbable claim and therefore to include it in the

15:31book when it is improbable, when you know that this will be incendiary to many people's ears and also you're a historian of great renown and you used to dealing with sources and evidence. Some people might wonder if you have included that claim which you can't verify. Well I can absolutely swear that she said those words to me. But in terms of proving that that happened, I just wonder and you know this will be the case that some people listening will wonder if you are including some of these allegations in order to create interest to sell your book perhaps. You may be accused of that, you know that. Of course I've been accused of lots of things. I remember straight after delivering the eulogy I became a bit of a tabloid punch bag. So I'm used to, when I speak up for Diana, I'm used to break bats coming my way. That's what happens. My job though is at the end of the day I think we have to get back to why I wrote this.

16:32It's a brother's tribute, a loving tribute to a sister. And I think she deserves honesty. So that's what I've delivered. Do you feel that people have sometimes misunderstood that of course she had these huge struggles, these huge agonies, but actually there was another side to her that you know leaps off the many of the pages of your book. She was just phenomenally good fun. We grew up together. I mean it was never a dull moment. We both have ADHD. She was never diagnosed, but clearly we did. I got a letter from an Annie recently. It was lovely. She said, you were a bit of a handful. And I think we probably were. But not nothing malicious, just a lot of energy and humour. You see, I wanted to get across that Diana was such a breath of pressure. She was also a complicated person. And under all of that pressure she did also want to tell her story. And you introduced her to Martin Beshear,

17:36then of the BBC, the journalist who contoured into giving an interview by using the wildest of claims. Now after years of investigations, the BBC had in and eventually apologised for their part in all of that. But do you think that that interview, what happened then, is linked even indirectly to her finding herself in Paris on the night of her death, getting into that car and ending up in that crash. Do you make that connection? I do make it as a connection, not the connection. So, Diana was under huge pressure. And particularly after she separated, I do think with panorama, yes, they cont- Diana, they also cont- me, by showing false bank statements to me to get to Diana by saying that somebody else had been deceiving her.

18:37But what happened, the consequences of Diana being told you cannot trust anyone, meant that she was alone that night really. And I think that she was convinced that she got rid of her driver, a totally innocent man, was told that he wouldn't be there. He wouldn't have been in Paris, but police bodyguards, private protection officers, they were got rid of too. And I think that's really, it all builds to people who said, oh, she was paranoid, she wasn't paranoid. She was convinced that she couldn't trust people because the evidence was there. And I think that left a vulnerable that night. She had also, by that point, she'd lost her security. She'd had her title taken away from her too by the Royal Family. That's happened to one of her sons, Harry. He's had his title taken away. He's losing a fight to get his security back. How do you think Harry and his family have been treated by the Royal Family?

19:38I would feel very reluctant to get involved in this discussion. I would say that I personally worry about the fifth in line to the throne who's served in the military not having any police protection. It does worry me, not politically, not because I can influence a raver, or whatever they call the security people, but just as an uncle, I do worry about the security aspect. Titles, I know I've got one, but I don't really use it. Titles are not very important to me. So I would just say from a security aspect, as an uncle, who's seen as sister-die and very, very preventable circumstances, that I would fear towards protection. But do you fear there is somehow an echo of what happened to Diana? Harry has said on many occasions that he hasn't felt supported by the institution over the choices that he's made with his life. Do you worry about there being an echo of what happened to your sister?

20:42I think there's a perception in the media that I'm on Harry's side. Well, I'm on my deceased sister's sons side, both of them. And if either of them wanted anything, then I'd be equally there for them. And I never get involved in one camp or the other, except as a benign figure, I hope. That's my role. Do you think Diana would identify with the attention, the focus that has been put on them? And with Megan, who said she felt like she was the most trolled person in the world? They were here during the summer, not so long ago. If you look at an article in a tabloid about Diana or the couple that you were mentioning, Harry and Megan, they can be really, really unpleasant. And I think it would be really beholden on people to learn from Diana's example. I'm not here to speak for Harry and Megan, but for anyone who's being destroyed in this way, daily. It must be such a cancerous influence in their life.

21:45I saw it with Diana. I saw Diana. I mentioned it in the eulogy, her tears of despair. One of the problems with Diana was she was very, very sensitive to criticism. And of course, I'm sure most of your viewers now think, oh, she had this splendid life and it was all amazing. And she didn't, she was so privileged and so perfect in so many ways. But she was really brought low by all that criticism. And yeah, I suppose it's a pity when I see echoes of that now. You've written about monarchy over the ages. And goodness knows in history there've been plenty of splits between the Spencers and the Windsors. But there's now a very bitter difficult split inside the Windsor family between the two boys. You've said you don't want to take sides, what do you think their mother would say to them about the division between them? There's a lot of reasons on both sides why this has got to this stage. And as an uncle, I hope one day it's resolved. But I don't know, well, I certainly don't know what's been done in the finer detail.

22:48And so I would feel intrusive if I got more involved than to say, of course, a mother would want her two sons to be happy together and love each other. Do you believe in the monarchy? Well, I believe it exists and I believe it will continue to exist. And I think monarchy's generally, when they work, they work really well. I'm married to an Norwegian and their monarchy is absolute. It's so admirable. I really have a lot of time for it. I haven't got a... I think monarchy's absolutely fine. I'm probably with the majority of the British people. You think, God, who do you get as a president? And that's quite worrying. Some of the politicians who might go for that role who would be less appetizing than a monarch. I find some of the flummery around monarchy quite jarring. You know, you mentioned the statement earlier, his majesty says.

23:49I just don't think it's healthy for a human being to be seen in such archaic several times. So I'm a bit more... I'm all for a monarchy, but I like a modern monarchy. You can get zero dollar delivery fees on eligible GrubHub orders, like that snack haul for moving night, no delivery fees. Those wings for game day, no delivery fees, and yes, that pasta for date night, no delivery fees. It's a dream deal. Visit amazon.com slash GrubHub to start saving. Terms in additional fees apply.

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25:53of the monarch of this country, who also people watching will remember has been seriously ill in this last year. The family has had illness and strife and upset and division. Do you support this monarchy? I do. You have a funny way of showing it. Well, I'm not dealing with King Charles as monarch in this book. This is all 30 odd years ago and what was said and done then. There are so many memories in the book and it feels very meaningful to sit in this house where much of what you recount took place, even though this wasn't your happy family home. Well, my fondest memories of Diana tend to be from our happy childhood home, which was before this, which is Parkhouse and Sandringham in Norfolk. Just it wasn't it, even though we had the rupture of my parents' divorce, it was such a happy home and it's just those days there, carefree days.

26:56So not an instance, but a period of life. And I tell you, it really breaks me up. Well, when I look at old photographs of Diana as a child and then think what happened, it's terribly sad. How much do you miss her? Well, every day, you know, that's the thing with sibling loss, you never get over it. Do you think there may be a time where you've used the phrase get over, but read in the book and given how this is all played in public? There is a sense that somehow what happened to her has understandably almost consumed you at times. I have a very luckily, I have a hugely diverse and happy life. One of the reasons I call this swan song actually is because it's my sign off. I have been Diana's brother. This is my final take on the situation.

27:59And I have a wonderful happy life, gorgeous children, fabulous wife. And we live this much more normal life than this looks like. And that's my future. This is my swan song too. I'm not here to bang on about Diana. This is my final word, celebration of her. And I will step off into the sunset now and not be available for comment. But there will be, as we've discussed, a lot of turbulence, a lot of anger. Perhaps a lot of divisions stirred up by some of the more eye catching claims that you have made. And some people might wonder, just maybe, has maybe in every family. Some family secrets are better left on said. They sat nearer and they have been left on said. Will you say more? You've said? Nope, that's it. That's me done.

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