BREAKING NEWS: Piers Morgan to sue Earl Spencer over ‘demonstrable lies’
Piers Morgan has announced that he is taking legal action against Earl Charles Spencer and his publishers over claims made about him in the new memoir Swan Song: Diana, My Sister.
The broadcaster accused Princess Diana’s brother of writing “demonstrable lies” about him and said he could prove that parts of Spencer’s account were factually wrong.
In the book, Spencer recalls being “flabbergasted” after discovering that newspaper editors had been invited to Diana’s funeral following her death in Paris in 1997.
He writes that he told the Queen’s then-senior private secretary, Robert Fellowes, that he did not want the editors there because he believed the press had “killed her”.
Spencer also claims that he personally contacted several tabloid editors to tell them they were no longer welcome at the funeral.
Among those he names is Morgan, who was editor of the Daily Mirror at the time.
According to Spencer’s account, Morgan reacted angrily.
“The only one who sounded surly, as opposed to merely confused or embarrassed, was Piers Morgan of the Mirror, who snarled with annoyance before he hung up,” Spencer writes.
Morgan Says Spencer’s Account Is False
Spencer also suggests in the memoir that Morgan may have felt “guilt” over the Sunday Mirror publishing photographs of Diana in a leotard while exercising at a gym several years earlier.
Morgan has strongly rejected the claims.
Writing on X, he announced: “BREAKING: I am taking legal action against Earl Spencer and his publishers over demonstrable lies he has written about me in his new book, which call into question his credibility as a supposed ‘historian’.”
He later expanded on his response during Piers Morgan Uncensored.
“Well, this is all pretty extraordinary stuff, isn’t it?” Morgan said.
“And very damning, particularly about me. I come across in the most despicable manner imaginable.”
He then bluntly rejected Spencer’s version of events.
“There’s just one problem. It’s all bullst and very, very easy bullst for me to prove it,” he said.
Morgan Points to Timeline Dispute
Morgan argued that one of the central problems with Spencer’s account concerns the timeline surrounding the photographs of Diana.
He said the Sunday Mirror published the gym pictures in November 1993.
Morgan pointed out that this was two years before he began working at the Daily Mirror.
He therefore questioned why Spencer appeared to connect him personally with the publication of those photographs.
“My question though is this, if Earl Spencer can be so incredibly, defamatorially wrong about such basic facts involving me, well, why should we believe anything else he puts in this book?” Morgan said.
The broadcaster’s comments represent his own challenge to Spencer’s account, and the legal dispute has not yet been resolved.
Spencer’s Memoir Already Causing Royal Controversy
The row with Morgan adds another layer of controversy to Spencer’s new book, which also contains several claims involving King Charles.
Among them is Spencer’s allegation that Charles told him “we’ll forget her soon enough” in the period following Diana’s death.
Buckingham Palace later responded with a statement suggesting that grief can affect memory and judgement.
Spencer strongly rejected that response and accused the King of “gaslighting” him.
He has also claimed that Charles sounded “giddily elated” and “like a lottery winner” during a phone conversation shortly after Diana died.
Those allegations remain Spencer’s account of private conversations and have been disputed by the Palace.
Legal Row Adds Fresh Pressure Around Book
Morgan’s decision to pursue legal action means scrutiny around Swan Song: Diana, My Sister is now extending beyond the Royal Family.
His challenge focuses specifically on claims involving his own conduct and the chronology of events surrounding Diana’s funeral and previous newspaper coverage.
Spencer, meanwhile, has presented the memoir as a personal account of his sister’s life and the events he says he witnessed around her death.
The dispute now appears set to move beyond television interviews and social media exchanges.
With Morgan publicly declaring that he intends to take legal action against both Spencer and his publishers, the release of the memoir has triggered yet another major confrontation over how events surrounding Diana’s life and death are being retold nearly three decades later.
