Princess Diana’s Brother, Charles Spencer, Opened Up About the Childhood Trauma They Endured

• Princess Diana's brother, Charles Spencer (opens in new tab), spoke to the Sunday Times about the trauma he and his sister experienced following their parents' separation in 1969.
• "Our father was a quiet and constant source of love, but our mother wasn’t cut out for maternity," he said.
• Charles, 9th Earl Spencer, said Diana would wait on the doorstep for her mom to visit—"but she never came."

Princess Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, opened up about the childhood trauma he and his sister shared after their parents, John and Frances Spencer, separated in 1969. Speaking (opens in new tab) to the Sunday Times, Charles, 9th Earl Spencer, said he underwent "agonizing and horrible" work in therapy in order to deal with the lasting effects of his childhood.

"Diana and I had two older sisters who were away at school, so she and I were very much in it together and I did talk to her about it," Charles said of his parents' split. "Our father was a quiet and constant source of love, but our mother wasn’t cut out for maternity. Not her fault, she couldn’t do it."

"While she was packing her stuff to leave, she promised Diana [then aged five] she’d come back to see her. Diana used to wait on the doorstep for her, but she never came. She could hear me crying down the corridor but was too scared of the dark to come to me."

"I’ve been in and out of therapy for 20 years. I did a lot of very profound work on my unhappy childhood last year, which was agonising and horrible," Charles continued. "I don’t say that out of self-pity, it was intriguing to me that it was so desperately unpleasant. But the result has been cathartic. Coming out the other side has been good."