Richard Kay says Spencer told him after Diana’s death that Charles had been “utterly pathetic”
Richard KayDaily Mail senior editor-at-large and former royal reporter who was a confidant of Diana, Princess of Wales, writing in the Daily Mail
In a Daily Mail column, senior editor-at-large Richard Kay wrote that he spoke with Charles Spencer several times in the week between Diana’s death and her funeral, and that Spencer said everyone he had dealt with over the funeral had been helpful except Prince Charles, with whom he had had a “furious row” “about the boys.” Spencer added of Charles, “He has been utterly pathetic.” Kay says this chimes with Spencer’s memoir. He does not claim to have witnessed the telephone call Spencer describes.
“He and I spoke several times during that frightful week between Diana’s death and her funeral. … Then, pointedly and without further explanation, he said everyone he had been dealing with over the funeral – courtiers, officials, Downing Street – had been helpful, with one exception. Who, I asked? ‘Prince Charles,’ came the reply. He said they’d had a ‘furious row’. It was ‘about the boys’, but he was reluctant to go further. Cuttingly he added: ‘He has been utterly pathetic.’”
Original text
Where this statement fits
Earl Spencer's memoir claims about King Charles's reaction to Diana's death
In his memoir "Swan Song: Diana, My Sister," serialised from September 2026, Charles Spencer makes a series of claims about how the then Prince Charles behaved towards him after Diana's death in 1997. He writes that Charles told him by phone, "Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough," and, in later excerpts, that Charles sounded "giddily elated – like a lottery winner" during the call and that he now suspects Charles was weighing how the death might free him to marry Camilla. Buckingham Palace, in a rare on-record statement, did not directly confirm or deny the quotation, saying instead that "the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory," and declined to respond again to the later claims. The dispute is whether Spencer's account of Charles's words and demeanour is accurate.
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Original text
About this source
Column by the Daily Mail's senior editor-at-large Richard Kay, headlined with the claim that what Spencer told him at the time about his row with Charles “chimes with his damning memoir.” It runs beside extracts from Spencer's memoir Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which the Mail is serialising.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
The column runs beside extracts from Spencer’s memoir, which the Mail is serialising, including the passages in which Spencer says Charles told him “we’ll forget her soon enough” and sounded “giddily elated.” Kay describes Buckingham Palace’s response to those extracts as “almost without precedent.”
After the quotation
Kay adds that Spencer told him he found Charles’s wish to walk behind Diana’s coffin “weird,” and that it alarmed courtiers and the police. Kay attributes the memoir’s portrait of a “petulant and peevish” Prince of Wales to Spencer, not to his own observation.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
On whether Spencer’s account of Charles’s words and demeanour after Diana’s death is accurate, Kay supports the accuracy of Spencer’s account in outline: what Spencer told him at the time about a hostile exchange with Charles is consistent with the memoir’s picture. His evidence is contemporaneous provenance, not first-hand knowledge of the call in which Spencer says Charles said “we’ll forget her soon enough,” and he does not claim otherwise. It is labelled condemns for consistency with how this case treats other corroborating accounts, and the rationale records that the evidence concerns a row over the funeral rather than the quoted remark.
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- Charles Spencer
More from this case
Read the full caseSpencer denies trying to discredit Charles
“At no point am I looking to discredit anyone.”Read statement
Spencer tells CBS he is “absolutely not bitter” and that his book “would be more bitter” if he were
“No, I'm absolutely not bitter. I can tell you, if I was bitter, this book would be more bitter.”Read statement
Spencer tells CBS he is “reporting that’s the fact,” not “justifying or criticizing”
“He sounded excited in a sort of upbeat way. … Yes, and obviously I'm not justifying or criticizing. I'm reporting that's the fact. … I said in the book that that might have been it, yeah, but that's obviously … I can't say what he was thinking”Read statement
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The Dispute Index. "Richard Kay says Spencer told him after Diana’s death that Charles had been “utterly pathetic”". First published: 2026-09-21. Last updated: 2026-09-25. https://disputeindex.com/events/1335-in-a-daily-mail-column-senior-editor-at