By now, we’ve all heard that Princess Diana‘s brother, Earl Charles Spencer, released a book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, with some scathing claims about King Charles’ alleged behavior and what he said when he learned that Princess Diana had. But some who worked with the late royal for several years are disputing what Spencer said and have some choice words for him.
Paul Burrell began working in the royal household when he was 18 years old, and served as Queen Elizabeth II‘s personal footman. In 1987, he was moved to the household of then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana. When they separated, Burrell served as Diana’s butler and became one of her closest confidants. He looked after her and her sons until the princess’s tragic death in 1997.
Because of how close Burrell was with Diana, many don’t believe he’s a big fan of King Charles and over the years he revealed plenty of unflattering behind-the-scenes details about the king’s temper and his past affair with Queen Camilla. But Burrell is now defending the monarch after Spencer’s shocking allegations.
During an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Burrell specifically challenged the claim that the king was “giddily elated” when Diana died.
Speaking to Morgan, who was also mentioned in Spencer’s book and has threatened legal action against the Earl over a factual error, Burrell said, “He speaks about the king being giddy with excitement when Diana died. Well, Piers, I was in Paris. I saw the king. He was a broken man. He was devastated.”
The former butler added that when Charles and Diana’s sisters exited the room where the princess’s body was, Charles had clearly been crying, “His eyes were bloodshot. He was pale and he was scared. I don’t recognize what Earl Spencer says about then-Prince Charles.”
Burrell also told Morgan that Spencer was “jealous” of his sister and that his book is a “rather spiteful, revengeful point of view he’s penned.”
Others, including veteran royal photographer Arthur Edwards, echoed what Burrell said as he was in Paris as well when the king and Diana’s sisters arrived to bring her body back to England.
“I was in Paris the day Diana died and took pictures of Prince Charles accompanying her flag-covered coffin as it left hospital on her final journey,” Edwards stated. “Trust me, this man who hours earlier had broken the news to his young sons that their mother had just died, was distraught.”
Burrell is the second one of Princess Diana’s staffers to have called out her sibling.
Days earlier, Diana’s former personal chef Darren McGrady posted on Instagram, “I bumped into Earl Spencer a few weeks ago when I was at Althorp but couldn’t bring myself to speak to him (despite cooking for him several times when he could be bothered to come to Kensington Palace for lunch with the princess). Had I know [sic] then what he planned to spew in his moneymaking spiteful book, I would have told him how disgusted his sister would have been.”
As for Morgan’s issue with what Spencer said about him, he wrote on X, “Earl Spencer has apologized to me for his defamatory lies published in his new book, Swan Song, published today. But I am pursuing legal action against him and his publisher Penguin to have the lies removed, and damages paid to the King’s Trust.”
In a separate post, Morgan said, “Earl Spencer’s account of our phone call is also deeply misleading. I was neither surly nor annoyed, but instead, very respectful to him and his family, as I wrote in my diaries, The Insider. It would seem that Spencer’s recollection of phone calls is very suspect.”
