Nearly 30 years after Princess Diana‘s was killed following a car crash in Paris, one book has opened up old wounds and rocked the monarchy, creating a back-and-forth of finger-pointing at who said what, and a strong rebuttal.
Princess Diana’s sibling, Earl Spencer, made an explosive claim in his memoir Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, accusing King Charles of sounding “giddily elated” when he spoke with him the day Diana died and alleged that then-Prince Charles said, “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.”
That allegation being put out there led to a rare response from Buckingham Palace that said, “While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, 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 book has also prompted a response from some who were close to the late princess, including her personal chef.
Darren McGrady was Queen Elizabeth II‘s chef at Buckingham Palace for more than a decade before he was transferred to Kensington Palace in 1993, becoming Princess Diana’s chef at Kensington Palace. He cooked for the princess and her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, up until Diana’s death in 1997.
McGrady posted a scathing Instagram message about Diana’s sibling on Instagram that read, “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.”
Before Spencer’s book even came out, McGrady, along with some of Diana’s other former staffers, criticized the princess’s younger sibling for the remarks he made over the years about their relationship and always wanting to “protect” his sister.
McGrady took to X with his displeasure then, insisting that Spencer was trying to “rewrite history,” posting, “This makes me want to throw up! Where were you when she needed you? NO! Not going to sit [here] and be quiet while her little brother tries to re-write history. YOU WEREN’T THERE FOR HER!”
Former Palace press secretary Dickie Arbiter, who worked closely with Princess Diana, took issue with Spencer’s comments as well, saying, “Such hypocrisy from Charles Spencer. He forgets some of us were there when he turned his back on Diana.”
The men are referring to what happened in 1996 when Diana asked her brother if she could be given a home on the family’s Althorp estate, to use as a bolt-hole following her divorce. At the time, Diana’s only home was at Kensington Palace, and she didn’t want to be there on the weekends. However, Spencer wrote a letter to his sister telling her no. That letter was later shared by Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell.
