Earl Spencer says he could write a “hit piece” on the king if he wanted to

Earl Spencer has denied his new memoir about his sister Diana, the late Princess of Wales, was a “hit piece” directed at King Charles, saying he could write such a book if he wanted to.

Going on the defence days after the publication of Swan Song: Diana, My Sister the earl said he stood by the claims made inside its pages and accused Buckingham Palace of “classic gaslighting”.

The 62-year-old was speaking on television show Lorraine in the UK and said he had “every right” to write about Diana, who died in a car crash in 1997.

“This is about Diana. It was impossible to give the full story of Diana’s life without putting in context certain things,” Earl Spencer said.

“I would like to explain I wasn’t setting out to do a hit piece on the King at all. The bits that have been included in the book are totally in context. If I wanted to write a hit piece on the royal family, I could do that. That’s not my job.

“My job in this book was to celebrate Diana − it’s exactly the same as with the eulogy. By doing that, other people are going to come off not as well as they might want to.”

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The book, which was published in Australia on Wednesday, has been shrouded in controversy and saw Buckingham Palace take the extraordinary move of issuing a statement criticising its author.

“Fraternal grief”, the palace said last week, could “cloud reason, affect judgement and colour memory ... many years after such a loss”.

In the book, the earl alleges that within days of Diana’s death, the then-Prince Charles told him: “We’ll forget her soon enough”. He also claims Charles “sounded giddily elated” when speaking of her passing.

The earl denied being put off by the palace’s statement, saying it “hasn’t rattled me at all”.

“If you look at the words, it’s classic gaslighting,” he said.

“So what they do is, ‘Oh, maybe his mind’s not right to remember these things because of the distance of time and grief’. No one said that the king didn’t say that because he did and he couldn’t say that.

“So, I stand by the truth and that’s the way it is. You know, I knew when I took this on that it would have a controversial effect, but it doesn’t matter because at the end of the day, it’s for Diana and I’d do anything for her.”

He admitted future copies of the book would be edited to correct errors, including a mistake he made regarding claims Piers Morgan was responsible for printing intrusive photos of Diana at a gym.

The earl has since apologised to Morgan for incorrectly claiming he was editor of the Daily Mirror at the time, despite him working for The Sun when the photos were published in 1993.

Morgan says he will still pursue legal action, despite the apology.

Spencer also spoke about the feud between his nephews Prince William and Prince Harry, saying as much as he’d like to see them come together again he was “only an uncle”.

His book has been compared to Prince Harry’s Spare for its potential to damage the royal family, while threatening to further the divide between the brothers and forcing them to relive the pain of their mother’s death.

He said: “Any mother would want her children to be on good terms. And I’m just an uncle, you know, and I’m there if any of them ever want anything from me … Harry came to stay in the summer with his family and that was lovely.”

He added: “It’s so sad. I saw the two little kids [Archie and Lilibet] running around … Can you imagine what a great grandmother Diana would have been? Spoiling them rotten.

“But I would never presume to be involved in that. Everyone watching has probably knowledge of family rifts. They’re so personal. There’s so much we don’t know about in any family rift.”