Charles Spencer Thinks Press Intrusion on Princess Diana Was “More Dangerous” Than Online Conspiracies about Kate Middleton

Even though Charles Spencer, the younger brother of Princess Diana, has concerns about the media treatment of Kate Middleton, he doesn’t think that the conspiracy theories about her health are as life-threatening as the behavior of paparazzi in the run-up to Diana’s 1997 death. In an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg about his new memoir, A Very Private School, he spoke about the online rumors surrounding the wife of his nephew, Prince William, and the ways the media has changed since Diana died in a Paris car crash as paparazzi circled her. “I do worry about what’s happened to the truth,” he told the broadcaster.

But in response to a question from Kuenssberg about whether online conspiracies have made press intrusion more potent, Spencer disagreed. “I think it was more dangerous back in the day,” he said. “If I look back to ’97 and Diana’s death—I think that was so shocking [and the] circumstances of the death were so shocking that it did make the industry that supports the paparazzi really consider more carefully what it could and couldn’t do. Not because they had a moral judgment, but because it was unacceptable to the public.”

Spencer also spoke about the new book, where he reveals that he was physically abused as a child at a boarding school. He also spoke about he and Diana’s experience of abuse from a nanny in their home. “I think that really damaging violence to children is going to affect them, whatever house they come from, whatever family they’re born into,” he said. “That nanny who did that to us, she used to crack our heads together if we both found to have done something naughty. Obviously without my father’s knowledge, but it really hurt. It wasn’t a tap on the wrist. It was a crunch, you know, and I remember it still.”

Both William and his younger brother, Prince Harry, attended boarding school from a young age, but when Kuenssberg asked Spencer whether those early experiences might have impacted their family relationships, the earl declined to speculate. “I couldn’t answer that because I can only really talk about myself. I think it’s too personal to trample on other people’s family with a view on something as important as that,” he said. “My personal view is, I’ve had seven children and I would never send any of them away. If they wanted to go away, they could or can. Two of them chose to go into weekly boarding in their mid teens, but I just couldn’t have done it to them. I couldn’t have said, ‘Right, you’re going.’ I just couldn’t break my heart.”