Princess Diana made a prescient comment about funeral homes just two months before her tragic death.
In his new book, Diana’s younger brother, Charles Spencer, recalls that on her 36th and final birthday — July 1, 1997 — a family member had sent his sister “a bouquet as a birthday gift,” and that the Princess of Wales had written to thank them, “I’ve been so lucky! My house is so full of gorgeous flowers that the place looks like a funeral parlour!”
Spencer also writes about bumping into Diana at London’s Tate Gallery shortly after her birthday in the memoir, “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister.”
Spencer, now 62, asked his older sister if she had “had a happy birthday, checked my gift to her had been safely received, and gave her a hug before we returned to our respective tables to eat.”
He eerily notes, “We had only that brief chat, never to see each other again” referencing her infamous death in a car crash in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997.
In the book, Spencer looks back on writing his sister’s eulogy just two months later following her shocking death in Paris’ Pont de l’Alma tunnel.
He recalls deciding “to include the poignancy of this final meeting in the eulogy as a reminder of how sudden and unexpected the death of a loved one can be.”
“Now here I was, just two months later, trying to write something suitable for her funeral,” he recalls in the heartbreaking tome.
In the days leading up the book’s release on Tuesday, Spencer has fielded controversy over his claims in the book.
After notably claiming Diana’s ex-husband, King Charles, said Diana would be forgotten “soon enough,” the monarch himself issued a harsh statement calling Spencer’s memory into question.
“While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty 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,” a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace told Page Six.
The author also exposed what he claimed was the monarch’s “odd wish” to walk behind Diana’s casket at the high-profile funeral — despite their divorce three years prior to her death.
“Prince Charles was insisting that he wanted to do so,” he wrote, adding, “It is hard to see why, given his feelings for Diana.”
Spencer noted that “an ex is never expected to act as chief mourner at their former spouse’s funeral” — but that Charles, now 77, “was adamant” about it.
Meanwhile, Spencer claimed, Queen Elizabeth II’s deputy privacy secretary, Sir Robin Janvrin, said that he “must be persuaded to walk” alongside Charles behind the casket.
Ultimately, Princes William and Harry, then 15 and 12, walked behind the casket along with their father, grandfather Prince Philip, and uncle Spencer from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey in the funeral procession — though Spencer wrote he didn’t want Diana’s children to walk.
That led to a confrontation with Charles, he claimed, with Charles calling him to say, “I gather you’ve got a problem with the funeral arrangements” before allegedly directing a “stream of anger” toward his former brother-in-law.
“Swan Song: Diana, My Sister” is out now.
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