Earl Spencer Says Harry's Grief Over Diana May Explain the Royal Rift

Princess Diana’s brother, Earl Charles Spencer, just gave royal watchers a whole new lens on the long-running Harry and William feud. In an interview with CBS Sunday Mornings, Spencer connected Harry’s grief over his mother’s death to the family fracture that’s been headline news for years. Diana died in a 1997 Paris car crash when Harry was 12 and William was 15, and Spencer walked beside a young Harry behind her coffin at the funeral. He remembered thinking,“This little boy shouldn’t have to walk behind his mother’s coffin.”He also wondered whether“a gentler, more understanding treatment”back then might have led to a better outcome for everyone.

The timeline since then is well documented. Harry stepped down as a senior working royal in 2020, moved to the U.S. with Meghan Markle, and has since reconciled with King Charles amid the monarch’s cancer battle. His relationship with Prince William, though, remains strained. Spencer, for his part, said he has no relationship with Charles and is“not interested in the royal family,”making his comments all the more striking since they come from someone outside the palace orbit entirely.

So the question that’s now bouncing around every group chat: can grief that was never fully processed as a kid shape decisions you make 25 years later? Spencer seems to think so. What do you think — does grief explain the rift, or is there more to the story?