Harry and Meghan’s media treatment echoes what happened to Diana, Earl Spencer tells BBC

Earl Spencer has told the BBC the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s treatment at the hands of the media has “echoes” of what happened to his sister Diana, Princess of Wales.

He described press coverage of Prince Harry and Meghan as a “cancerous influence in their life” and said it would be “beholden on people to learn from Diana’s example”.

The Sussexes, who recently returned to the UK from California six years after stepping back from royal duties, have been repeatedly critical of the media.

It comes after the BBC reported on Friday how Earl Spencer says he was “telling the truth” when he claimed King Charles said people would forget Diana “soon enough” in a phone call in the days after her death.

Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg at his Althorp estate, Earl Spencer was asked if he believed Diana would “identify” with the scrutiny the Duke and Duchess of Sussex face.

“If you look at an article in a tabloid about Diana or the couple that you were mentioning, Harry and Meghan, you know, they can be really, really unpleasant,” he replied.

“And I think it would be really beholden on people to learn from Diana’s example.

“I’m not here to speak for Harry and Meghan, but for anyone who’s being destroyed in this way daily, it must be such a cancerous influence in their life.”

He said he saw Diana’s “tears of despair” when describing the impact of media coverage on her, adding she was “very, very sensitive to criticism”.

Earl Spencer said his sister – who married the then-Prince Charles in 1981 – was “really brought low by all that criticism”, describing it as a “pity” to see “echoes of that now” in the treatment of his nephew Prince Harry and wife Meghan.

He also said he thought there was a media perception that he was “on Harry’s side” but insisted: “I’m on my deceased sister’s sons’ side, both of them and if either of them wanted anything, then I’d be equally there for them.”

Princess Diana was subject to huge press interest right up until her death in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997.

In the eulogy he delivered at her funeral, Earl Spencer accused the media of being on a “permanent quest…to bring her down” and said newspapers had been threatened by her “genuine goodness”.

His comments about the Sussexes come just weeks after the pair returned to the UK.

They have long been critical of their treatment by the British press as well as the support they received from the Royal Family prior to their decision to leave the UK.

Speaking in the couple’s 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Prince Harry accused the tabloid media of having created a “toxic environment” of “control and fear”.

Meghan, meanwhile, said in the couple’s 2022 Netflix series that “no matter how hard I tried, no matter how good I was, no matter what I did, they [the media] were still going to find a way to destroy me”.

In July this year, Prince Harry and six others including Liz Hurley and Sir Elton John lost a privacy case against the publisher of the Daily Mail, and may face a legal bill of up to £34.5m.

In separate, earlier legal battles, the Duke of Sussex beat the Mirror Group in court, and the News Group out of court, forcing a settlement, damages, payout and apology.

Earl Spencer’s interview with the BBC was his first since the Palace issued a strongly-worded response to his claims about King Charles.

That statement said the King was “mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgement and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss”.

Earl Spencer, in comments first reported on Friday, reacted to it by saying: “Well, is he furious? Is he furious or is he embarrassed?”

He added: “I’ve only ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life.

“I was hyper alert to what he was saying and those are precisely the words that he said and I promise that to you now. Genuinely, that is what he said. I don’t hear him saying he didn’t say that.”

Pressed on whether he had evidence to back up the claim, he said he told family and friends at the time what had been said “because it was so monstrous”.

In his response to the Palace disputing his account, Earl Spencer, who shares his first name with the King, said: “They’ve sort of smudged that one, haven’t they? They’ve said that recollections may vary.”

When asked which Charles the public was meant to believe, he said: “I’m telling the truth.”

Earl Spencer’s book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, is due to be published next week and is expected to be highly critical of the Royal Family.

In further extracts published on Thursday, he claimed how the King “sounded giddily elated” when he called him after Diana’s death, alleging Charles sounded like a “lottery winner”.