London, 20 Sep (Reuters) – The treatment by the media of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan is comparable to what was faced by his mother, Diana, and it is important to draw lessons from this, said the brother of the late princess in an interview published on Sunday.
Diana died at the age of 36 in a car crash in Paris, in 1997, while photographers were pursuing her on motorcycles, which sparked a wave of mourning and a debate about whether the media bore any responsibility for her death, after years of publishing details of her life on the front pages of newspapers.
Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, told the BBC that the treatment by the tabloid press of both Diana and Harry and Meghan can be “very, very unpleasant” and that “it’s really important that people learn from Diana’s example.”
“I am not here to speak on behalf of Harry and Meghan, but for anyone who is being destroyed in this way daily, that must be an extremely harmful influence on their life,” he said.
Spencer is preparing to release his book, “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,” which made headlines around the world after accusing the now-King Charles of making incendiary comments in the days following her death.
In the book, Spencer accused Diana’s ex-husband, the then Prince of Wales, of appearing “elated” in the hours after her death and said that an angry Charles would have told Spencer that the world would forget Diana soon.
In an unusual move, the palace rebutted, stating that the king was “aware that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud judgment, affect reasoning and distort memories in ways that others do not recognize, even many years after such a loss.”
Questioned by the BBC about how he could prove that the conversations had taken place, Spencer said he had included a specific line in his highly praised funeral speech for Diana to counter the comments, ending it by saying that she “would never be erased from our minds.”
Spencer said he wrote the book, before the 30th anniversary of her death, to celebrate Diana’s life. He said their childhood was never dull: “We both have ADHD. She was never diagnosed, but clearly we did.”
