Exclusive: Charles Spencer Says He Thinks Princess Diana Saw Their Stepmother as "Something to Be Played With" and Used Her Against Their Mother

Princess Diana and her younger brother, Charles Spencer, had a difficult relationship with their father’s second wife, but the late princess developed a curious friendship with Raine Spencer in her later years. It’s a decision Earl Spencer didn’t quite understand at the time, and as he tells Marie Claire, it points to his sister’s “complex” personality.

In Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, the earl writes about his childhood with Princess Diana and the shock they experienced when his father married socialite Raine McCorquodale. The siblings called her “Acid Raine” and Diana even pushed her down the stairs in a shocking incident detailed in the book, yet the princess seemed to warm to her stepmom in the late ‘90s.

When asked about one story where Diana held hands with Raine at their father’s funeral, Spencer tells Marie Claire that he wanted to “touch on how complex Diana was” in Swan Song—and that includes how she played Raine against their mother, Frances Shand Kydd.

“You know, Raine was, in many ways, a classic unfortunate stepmother for us,” Spencer says. “And yet, for Diana, she was something to almost be played with, you know, at the end.”

In Swan Song, Earl Spencer recalls his surprise at seeing how kindly Diana treated Raine at their father’s funeral, writing that he felt his sister was “playing to the gallery at the cost of integrity.”

Princess Diana would go to lunch with Raine and the royal was photographed laughing with her stepmother at the auction of her famous dress collection in June 1997, just two months before her tragic death. But Spencer says he feels there was a hidden motivation behind Diana’s sudden chumminess with Raine.

“I actually, genuinely—this is not because I, as it is clear, I don't like Raine—I don't think Diana ever liked Raine," Earl Spencer shares. “But she was having trouble with our mother. Diana and my mother had fallen out. So, Diana knew that sort of publicly befriending Raine would be very painful to my mother.”

He adds, “I think that is complex, but it is an honest look at the whole of Diana, really.”

Ironically, Raine was the one who introduced Princess Diana to Dodi Fayed, as she was working for his father, Harrods boss Mohamed Al-Fayed, at the time. "I think Raine had this grifter quality to her. So exchanging a date with her stepdaughter with the man who was effectively employing her and his son was the sort of way she operated, you know?" Earl Spencer says.

Although Raine was responsible for connecting the duo, who died in a car crash when they were visiting Paris, Earl Spencer says he doesn't blame his late stepmother. "I think that would be unfair on Raine, to be honest," he shares.