Piers Morgan accuses Earl Spencer of lying about their legal dispute

Piers Morgan has publicly shared letters between his lawyers and the publishers of Earl Spencer’s book after Diana’s brother claimed he was not being sued by the journalist.

The release of the letters came after Earl Spencer denied Morgan had launched legal proceedings against him.

Speaking at an event in New York on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) with former magazine editor Tina Brown, Spencer was asked directly whether Morgan was suing him and insisted that he was not.

The two men are locked in a bitter dispute over claims in Swan Song: Diana, My Sister which was published last week.

Spencer claims in the book that Morgan was responsible for publishing photographs of Diana in a leotard at a gym, taken with hidden cameras and published in the Sunday Mirror in 1993.

But Morgan was editor of The Sun at the time and did not join The Mirror until 1995.

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Spencer issued a public apology to Morgan and statement released on his behalf said: “As an historian, accuracy is important to Earl Spencer. He therefore wishes to clarify that his assumption was incorrect. Earl Spencer apologises to Mr Morgan for this error.”

Second editions of the book will be edited to rectify the error but the book’s publishers have no plans to pull the current copies from shelves.

Morgan said last week: “Earl Spencer has apologised to me for his defamatory lies published in his new book, Swan Song. But I am pursuing legal action against him and his publisher Penguin to have the lies removed, and damages paid to the King’s Trust.”

In response to Earl Spencer’s denial that he was being sued, Morgan published a series of confidential legal letters on Wednesday, via X.

He said the move was necessary to counter the Earl’s “latest lie” that he was not being sued for a factual error.

Writing on X Morgan said: “After Earl Spencer’s denial that I am taking legal action against him publishing defamatory lies about me in his book, here is the legal correspondence between me and lawyers for Penguin, publishers of Swan Song”.

The letters are between Morgan’s legal firm Schillings and Wiggins, acting on behalf of Penguin.

They show that on September 22, the day the book was published in the UK, Morgan demanded immediate action over “false, defamatory and indefensible” statements.

Wiggins pointed to the earl’s apology but said there were no grounds for a viable defamation claim.

“We can confirm that appropriate amendments to address the acknowledged inaccuracy will be made to future reprints of the book (including the paperback edition), and that the audiobook and ebook are being amended to correct the inaccuracy, but otherwise our client cannot see that any additional action or further response is required,” it said.

Schillings responded by claiming the allegations made in the earl’s book regarding the photos of Diana at the gym “falsely associate” Morgan with “one of the most notorious invasions of Diana’s privacy and imply both responsibility for and lack of remorse about that conduct”.

Since its publication, Swan Song has become the UK’s bestselling hardback non-fiction book of 2026.