Charles Spencer: It was ‘jarring’ when Diana said Prince Charles was in love with his valet

Charles Spencer’s Swan Song is still causing headlines. In a convoluted way, I think Buckingham Palace would probably prefer for the conversation to be centered on whether then-Prince Charles was “giddily elated” over Princess Diana’s 1997 death and whether he hissed “we’ll forget her soon enough.” Buckingham Palace really, really doesn’t want a long-running conversation about whether King Charles was at one point in love with his valet Michael Fawcett, and whether, as A.N. Wilson theorized, Charles is allegedly bisexual (mostly gay) and he’s had some kind of supportive understanding with Camilla for decades. Well, when Charles Spencer was in New York for book promotion, he appeared on Katie Couric’s podcast. Couric actually asked Spencer some follow-up questions about that “in love with his valet” line in Swan Song.

Charles Spencer is offering more detail about one of the more controversial anecdotes from his new book about Princess Diana. The 9th Earl Spencer recently sat down with Katie Couric to discuss his new memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister. The pair spoke about the final months of Diana’s life and Spencer’s present-day relationships with his nephews Prince William and Prince Harry. Diana’s younger brother also recounted the scene recounted in the book where Diana took him to lunch to tell him she was divorcing then-Prince Charles.

“And then she said this line, which I put in the book, which was, ‘My husband’s in love with his valet,’ ” he recalled. “We didn’t push that any further, because the headline was, ‘I’m getting divorced.’ So I remember that, what she said though, because it was quite a jarring thing.”

Rumors of Prince Charles and an “incident” involving a staffer circulated in 2003, when a former aide to the royal won an injunction to stop the Mail on Sunday from printing the allegedly libelous story, per CBS News. Prince Charles’ then-private secretary, Sir Michael Peat, issued a rare denial in response: “The allegation is becoming common currency, and there’s a lot of speculation and innuendo about it. That’s why I want to make it entirely clear, even though I can’t refer to the specifics of the allegation, that it is totally untrue and without a shred of substance,” per the outlet.

As he wrote in Swan Song, Spencer told Couric that he didn’t press his sister for further details on her claim.

“There were no names mentioned then or afterwards,” he said.

“But did you assume it was a man?” Couric followed up. Spencer replied, “I suppose there are female valets, but it would more normally be a male.”

Couric then brought up that, at the same time, Diana would have been aware of Charles’ longtime affair with the future Queen Camilla. “So it was the valet and Camilla?” she asked. “I’m just trying to follow this.”

“All I can do is record what she said. And that’s it,” Spencer replied. “We did not, I mean, genuinely, didn’t explore that avenue, but it was a big thing to say.”

Couric then wondered if “years of being in a loveless marriage had started to take its toll.”

“I’d have thought so,” Spencer agreed. “I mean, with Diana, I juxtaposed the 19-year-old curled up with such excitement on the sofa in her apartment shared with her girlfriends. And then the forlorn figure telling me over lunch in London that this is all over. And it’s very sad.”

[From People]

I actually think Couric’s reframing is interesting – “a loveless marriage had started to take its toll.” It wasn’t simply that then-Prince Charles had a mistress (then-Camilla Parker Bowles). It’s that he was just never prioritizing Diana whatsoever. There were multiple affairs with different people, possibly women and men. And there were emotional affairs as well. Even if you’re reluctant to believe that King Charles had a sexual affair with Michael Fawcett, there’s no question that they had an emotional affair for decades, and that Fawcett was closer to Charles than nearly anyone else. That also took a toll on Diana, the fact that all of these other people were so much closer to Charles. But yeah, Spencer knew what he was doing when he included that quote. I’m surprised by how few journalists have asked him about it too.

Also: Spencer is correct that most valets are men. Especially for royal men – I doubt that any Windsor man has ever had a female valet.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.