We’re still talking about the forum event Charles Spencer did in NYC with Tina Brown. We discussed some of it yesterday– Spencer has been in New York, promoting his memoir of his sister, Swan Song. Tina Brown booked Spencer for this taped Q&A session, and I just saw that the entire video was published through Brown’s Fresh Hell YouTube channel. As I said yesterday, it was a choice for Spencer to sit down with Brown, who has spent a big chunk of the past decade carrying water for the Windsors. Still, Spencer isn’t afraid of her and he did well in her “hot seat.” He also spoke more in-depth about Buckingham Palace’s gaslighting attempts and how it’s well-known that Charles has a terrible temper.

In his conversation with Tina Brown, Charles Spencer called [the palace’s gaslighting statement] “a very aggressive response” and “a false reaction to the book as a whole.”

“I felt very frustrated, really, because anyone who reads the book will see that it’s a brother’s loving tribute to his sister,” he added. He added that the King had not denied his claims outright. Brown said his claims – including that the King was “giddily elated like a lottery winner” on the morning the Princess died – had caused “great debate” in the UK. The Earl responded: “I don’t know if it is a great debate. I’ll tell you why, [Charles] had the opportunity to not say anything or to deny it and he did neither.”

Asked about the Palace’s response, which raised questions about the legitimacy of his claims, he retorted: “He didn’t say ‘I didn’t say it’.

When Brown responded “No, he didn’t. He attributed it to your own fraternal grief,” he said: “Well, that’s called gaslighting.”

Speaking in a church in Manhattan, the Earl also claimed that the King had a “temper”. Referring to a conversation about whether Prince William and Prince Harry should walk behind their mother’s coffin to her funeral, he said: “I knew the last thing she would want was to have those boys traumatised walking behind her body. I don’t think there’s a person on the planet who thinks now that was a good idea. So I was very calm, and we know Prince Charles can be not calm.”

In reference to a video of the King becoming frustrated with a leaking pen while signing a visitors book at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland in 2022, he added: “We all bow our heads in respect of what that pen had to endure when he had his tantrum. But the point is that this is a man with a temper, and I was very even that day. I was just saying she wouldn’t want it, and it’s wrong.”

At the end of the talk, Brown posed some questions from the audience to Spencer. One asked, “What would you say to the King if you ran into him?”

Spencer answered, “The Brits [are] very good at sort of catching each other’s eyes and operating in other parts of the room.”

Spencer was also asked an audience question about the life his late sister might have led if she had never become part of the British royal family. “What do you think Diana would have been if she hadn’t married the heir to the throne?” Brown asked.

“Happy,” Spencer answered.

[From People & The Telegraph]

I still love that Charles Spencer is calling out King Charles in this patrician way. Spencer is even-tempered, if a bit haughty, which also works in an exquisite way. Spencer is an aristocrat, a peer of the realm, and he’s saying that the current king is childish and temperamental and tantrum-prone. And that’s really it, isn’t it? The palace can’t deny what has been obvious for years – it’s completely in character for King Charles to hiss “we’ll forget her soon enough.”

Screencaps courtesy of Fresh Hell video and Spencer’s BBC interview.