King Charles III led a “full court press operation” to diminish the public perception of Princess Diana after their separation and her subsequent death, says the documentary filmmaker Phil Craig.
On The Royalist podcast, Craig shared his take on revelations in Charles Spencer’s memoir Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which claims Charles was dismissive of his sibling after her death at 36.
Craig says the memoir’s bombshell allegations align with what he saw and heard while documenting the royal family.
“When somebody gets up and says, ‘[Charles] never—he always said his friends must never badmouth the princess,’ I mean, it is laughable,” Craig said. “It’s ridiculous. Do they think we’re stupid? Do they think we have no memories?”
Spencer wrote in his memoir that shortly after Diana died, Charles told him, “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.”
In a break with tradition, Buckingham Palace commented on the claim, asserting that the king is “mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment, and color memory in ways others do not recognize, even many years after such a loss.”
However, a palace aide told The Telegraph that Charles’ comment was “just not in his nature” and that he “defied protocol” to give Diana a ceremonial funeral.
In 2003, Craig helped produce Charles: The Battle with Diana—a documentary episode that dove deep into Charles’ and Diana’s PR war and explored how the Prince of Wales’ household allegedly tried to paint Diana as unstable and disturbed.
While not considering himself a “royal expert,” Craig said he is particularly educated about “a very narrow part of this story.” He alleges there was a professional effort to paint Diana in a negative light.
“Because what they’ve always done in that family—and of course, what a lot of people close to the royals themselves have known—is that there was a full court press operation, as you say, very professionally run,” he said of the alleged anti-Diana campaign. “I’d say it was rather disreputable for a future king and head of the Church of England to do that, because what this boils down to is an attitude towards speaking about Diana that we’ve seen this week.”
He added, “If you or I say something about Diana, we’re exploiting her. It’s shameful. How dare we try to monetize this woman? Let her rest in peace. But if they say something about her, including some of the most hurtful and horrible things, then that’s meant to be kind of an acceptable part of the to-and-fro of royal reporting.”
Buckingham Palace did not return a request for comment.
Craig said that though Diana “displayed all sorts of odd behaviors” toward the end of her life, that she was still “super successful.”
“But no, all of a sudden, we were led to believe that that was all just surface—she was really just a screaming lunatic,” he said of rumors about Diana.
Join veteran royal correspondent Tom Sykes in the throne room to find out how the secret world of the palace really operates—every bit of royal tea you could need. New Royalist podcasts will be released every Tuesday on YouTube, and the next day on all podcast platforms.
