Charles Spencer has rejected Princess Diana death conspiracy theories, saying he does not believe the 1997 Paris car crash that killed his sister was planned. The 9th Earl Spencer addressed the long-running speculation in a cover interview with People published Monday.
“I’ve never believed in the conspiracy theory,” said Spencer, 62. Diana died at age 36 after the car carrying her crashed in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in August 1997.
Her death generated decades of claims ranging from an alleged plot involving the royal family or British intelligence to the suggestion that Diana staged her own death. Evidence has not been nearly as durable as the rumors, but that has rarely slowed them down.
Prince Harry revealed in his 2023 memoir, Spare, that he once wondered whether his mother had faked her death.
Why Charles Spencer rejects the theories
Spencer argued that the circumstances of the crash do not support claims of a coordinated assassination.
“If somebody was conspiring to kill somebody very high profile like that, I don’t think that would be the manner that it would happen in,” he said.
He pointed specifically to the route taken that night, saying nobody had planned for Diana to travel through the tunnel where the crash occurred.
“The fact that it ended up tragically being a car crash, I think, is purely a coincidence,” Spencer said.
He added that he would speak publicly if he believed there had been a plot. “If I thought otherwise, I would say so,” he told the magazine. “I just don’t see it.”
The comments come as Spencer promotes his memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which is scheduled for release Tuesday. The book also revisits the royal family’s response to Diana’s death, a subject that remains considerably less settled within the family.
His memoir renews a dispute with King Charles
Excerpts published last week included Spencer’s sharply critical account of how King Charles reacted to the death of his former wife.
Spencer claimed the monarch, now 77, sounded “giddily elated” and said Diana would be forgotten “soon enough.” King Charles denied that account through Buckingham Palace.
“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,” a palace spokesperson said Wednesday.
Spencer stood by his version in the People interview. He also disputed the portrayal in Netflix’s The Crown, which showed Charles devastated by the news.
“I’ve heard that in The Crown, for instance, he is sort of knocked sideways by the news of Diana’s death, and that’s just not true,” Spencer said.
He insisted he was not making the claim out of “viciousness” or lingering hostility. “I’m not resentful or bitter or any of those things,” he said. “It’s just a straightforward fact that that was the case, and I think that’s important for people to know.”
Where Spencer stands with the king now
Spencer said he currently has “really nothing to do” with King Charles and regards him primarily as a former brother-in-law.
He said their distance reflects what often happens after a divorce, when people once connected through a marriage become less involved in one another’s lives. The two have occasionally crossed paths at family weddings, but Spencer said they no longer have a meaningful personal relationship.
“He’s just not part of my life and I’m not part of his,” Spencer said, while adding that he did not want to sound overly dismissive.
“At the end of the day, family is family, and families have all sorts of energies, tensions, happinesses, and problems,” he added. “It’s just normal.”
Normal, in this case, includes a public disagreement over one of the most scrutinized deaths of the past three decades and a palace statement questioning the reliability of a grieving brother’s memory. Royal family life does tend to set a generous definition of the word.
