Princess Diana's Brother in the Crown: "A Lot of Conjecture and Invention"

What specifically has been fabricated? DL historians chime in.

I loved his eulogy....he definitely threw shade at the Royal Family...

this is how he ended it, strong:

[italic] I would like to end by thanking God for the small mercies he has shown us at this dreadful time. For taking Diana at her most beautiful and radiant and when she had joy in her private life. Above all we give thanks for the life of a woman I am so proud to be able to call my sister, the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds. [/italic]

I don't think that was true about her having joy in her private life. Dodhi Fayed was just a prop to make the doctor she really loved jealous and take her back. Sadly I think she died unhappy.

WTF, OP?! You’ve got this ass backward about Diana’s brother. I didn’t agree with him at all, but, although in life he was not close to Diana, in death he was her biggest partisan.

[Quote]"They assume, especially foreigners, I find Americans tell me they have watched The Crown as if they have taken a history lesson. Well, they haven't." --The Earl Spencer

His pointed reference to Americans ruffled me. Reminds me that other than Netflix fodder, I really have no use for nobility, from the lowest Earl to the highest Crown.

PS: His 56 years have not been kind to him.

R3 I agree with you. Diana remained in love with the Pakistani surgeon and Dodi was just a game to make him jealous.

Not sure what he's bitching about , she doesn't come across THAT badly in the show

I think it's telling that William and Harry don't have much to do with him.

I think they have much more to do with Diana's sisters, Sarah and Jane, than they do with the Earl Spencer.

He's an interesting guy. He's been very strategic in remaking Althorp more tourist friendly by putting lots of Diana exhibits on there (and also changing its pronunciation to the way the word looks rather than its pronunciation before he became early, [italic]AL-trip.[/italic]) And he's written several popular books on seventeenth-century history.

On the other hand, he's been married multiple times and has several children by each wife. And he's supposedly a terrible husband. My overall sense is that he's a bit of a con artist. He spoke at Diana's funeral of caring for William and Harry (which was a grossly insensitive play to the cameras, given that their father was still living and now had legal custody of them), and then had little to do with them, staying in South Africa.

His family is now being brought up on charges that they sold Diana stories for money. Of course they hate this. They’re in deep shit because of the renewed interest.

It’s interesting that Diana and her brother were the most affected by their parents divorce. At least publicly. He and Diana were at odds when she died because she wanted a particular cottage on the family estate and he said, no you can have another one but not that one. I think the one she wanted was more visible and the last thing Charles Spencer wanted was a bunch of reporters sneaking around. The great thing about siblings is that no matter how rich and famous you become, your siblings will always tell you when you are being a jerk.

If he wanted to make headlines, he could tell the world where she is REALLY buried.

Didn’t she give birth during an alien invasion? Some kook in another thread said something like that.

Bump for more Spencer tea...

[quote] After her death he seemed like he sided more with the Royal Family than his own sister

What? OP you’ve no clue what you’re talking about. Regardless what was happening behind closed door, he was very public in despising the RF for their treatment of Di.

The summer that she died, Diana had nowhere to go other than staying in London at Kensington Palace. Tina Brown writes about this in The Diana Chronicles. Charles had the boys.

Diana was at sixes and sevens.

All of her and Charles’ mutual friends had ‘chosen’ him when their marriage ended, and the expected invitations to country houses were not forthcoming. She asked her brother for a house on Althorp but he said no. That’s one of the reasons why she was spending time with Dodi Al-Fayed - he was able to provide her with the lifestyle and professional security detail that she had lost in the divorce.

R16 you make it sound like she was broke and couch surfing. She could easily have afforded to buy or rent the most luxe accomodations.

I wonder if Diana ever saw a psychologist or psychiatrist. She clearly needed help.

I remember hearing William discuss the period when he and Kate broke up post college and then got back together. He said they needed to make sure she was psychologically ready for being in the public eye to that extent would do to her. He said they didn't want to make the same mistakes that affected his mother. It sounded like Kate got lots of counseling to see if she was prepared for the whole thing. William seems very aware of psychology and his mother's issues.

R17 And then sat alone in her rented mansion as everyone politely declined her social invitations. Eventually Diana would have put together a new life for herself, but not with that crowd.

R18 Yes she did see a top London psychiatrist.

Remember, though, she had severe personality disorder (borderline) and medications have a modest effect on those with borderline. They need years of intensive therapy and if they lack insight into the nature of their personality disorder, therapy will have little effect on their prognosis.

Was she formally diagnosed as Borderline or is that just a rumor?

The royals are shit but he was quite hypocritical himself, he was a huge douche to diana when she lived.

Diana's sister (not sure which one) was awful to her.

On that CNN documentary series they said Diana found out about Charles and Camilla being together prior to the wedding. She went to her sister saying she wanted to call off the wedding but the sister told her she couldn't since the whole world was already celebrating it. The then showed all the T-shirts and towels and souvenirs of the wedding London shops were selling.

I can't imagine what it must have been like for her to go through that beautiful wedding knowing it was all a lie.

R23 Well, Diana and Charles both revised their wedding day memories a lot. The truth is Diana would have crawled over broken glass to get Charles to the alter. She was determined to marry him, don’t fall for her revisionist history that makes her the lamb to the slaughter. She may have been young and naive but she wanted that marriage at the time.

And here all this time I thought "The Crown" was a documentary! Thanks, Lord Spencer, for finally shedding light on the truth!

[quote] Diana was at sixes and sevens

I haven’t heard that term in ages R16. Bravo

what does at mean r26?

(it is in Evita)

>At sixes and sevens

“Definition: Confused, disorganized, disorderly, as in ‘We've just moved in, and the office is still at sixes and sevens’, or ‘The new college admissions tests were poorly explained, leaving the students at sixes and sevens.’”

[quote]He said they needed to make sure she was psychologically ready for being in the public eye to that extent would do to her. He said they didn't want to make the same mistakes that affected his mother. It sounded like Kate got lots of counseling to see if she was prepared for the whole thing.

You're naive if you think they separated until she had proper psychological training to deal with being a royal. That doesn't even make sense, why would abandoning your fiancee publicly and dating other women "prepare" her for being a royal? How does appearing in the papers with other women for years help prevent William from making the same mistakes Diana did?

And since when has the BRF cared if the women who marry into the family are psychologically able to handle their duties or not? They just expect the women to do as they're told and not complain about it, they'd probably cringe and snicker if anyone asked how they helped "psychologically prepare" someone like Kate to be a royal.

ah thanks r28

William said Kate wanted to think about it and explore other parts of her life before she decided to take up with him again. Then he said hopefully this time to think will avoid the issues his mother had r29

It's what he said. I'm just the messenger.

R24

[quote] The truth is Diana would have crawled over broken glass to get Charles to the alter.

Oh Dear.