When Earl Spencer was interviewed by Larry King in 1997, he had nothing but words of praise for the-then Prince Charles, in the aftermath of Diana’s death and funeral. When Larry King asked if the Prince of Wales had had anything to say about Spencer’s fiery eulogy, his guest replied, ‘Not about the speech, no, but he was perfectly polite all day’, and went on to stress that, ‘Nothing nasty has ever been said about it by him to me.’

Spencer attempted to claim that he was drawing a distinction between Charles as king and Charles as unpleasant brother-in-law. Which, I am afraid, will not wash

Spencer attempted to claim that he was drawing a distinction between Charles as king and Charles as unpleasant brother-in-law. Which, I am afraid, will not wash

Given how emotional and pointed his speech was – in which Spencer talked of how Diana ‘needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic’ – his nonchalant, even respectful appraisal of his former brother-in-law might have seemed slightly incongruous. But at least it appeared to recognise that through the bond of grief they had transcended any personal disagreements.

Nearly three decades later, Spencer sat down for a BBC interview with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, in which he discussed the extraordinary revelations in his forthcoming memoir Swan Song –most notably, the future king’s alleged dismissal of his former wife, with the words ‘We’ll forget her soon enough.’

It was the most anticipated conversation between the media and a royal-adjacent figure since Harry and Meghan opened up to Oprah in 2021, and the substance of the interview will undoubtedly be just as debated.

If the optics of the encounter superficially owed something to the notorious Emily Maitlis-Prince Andrew sit-down for Newsnight in 2019, less was at stake this time, given that the ‘he said, he said’ dynamic in question could not quite compare to the allegations of sexual abuse being aired then.

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