Earl Charles Spencer has issued a public apology to Piers Morgan over what he’s described as an “incorrect assumption” about the divisive broadcaster in his new memoir Swan Song.
The brother of the late Princess Diana issued a statement on Tuesday afternoon following the news that Piers intended to take legal action over “bullshit” written about him by Earl Spencer in the newly-released book about his late sister.
Speaking on his YouTube channel Piers Morgan Uncensored on Monday evening, the former Good Morning Britain star read an excerpt from Swan Song in which Earl Spencer recalled telling Piers he was no longer invited to Princess Diana’s funeral.
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The book makes reference to Earl Spencer contacting “Piers Morgan of The Mirror”, who the Earl said “sounded surly, as opposed to merely confused or embarrassed” and “snarled with annoyance before he hung up”.
“I assumed Morgan must be feeling particular guilt because, years earlier, he and his Sunday Mirror counterpart had published photographs taken with hidden cameras by a gym owner. They were of Diana working out in a leotard,” the passage read.
“This was such an intolerable invasion of her privacy that Diana instructed lawyers to sue the Mirror Group and to block further use of these images.”
“For a while it looked as though the Mirror Group would be brazen enough to allow the case to go to court, calculating that whatever their newspapers lost financially at trial would be more than recouped through global publicity,” Earl Spencer went on to write.
“Despite significant public outrage at the pictures, and loss of revenue when some major companies withdrew their advertising from the Mirror Group, Morgan’s triumphant spokesman boasted that sales of his paper and of the Sunday Mirror had each risen by more than a hundred thousand copies since splashing the intrusive shots.
“But after that, public curiosity turned into general revulsion, and both papers’ circulation dropped significantly. This commercial setback persuaded the Mirror Group to fold. It agreed to pay Diana’s legal costs, of around £1 million, and it was obliged to further acknowledge its guilt by making donations of £200,000 to her chosen charities.”
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Responding to the passage, Piers claimed: “There’s just one problem – it’s all bullshit, and very, very easy bullshit for me to prove it.”
He then pointed out he wasn’t even working at The Mirror at the time of the pictures’ publication, and threatened legal action against Earl Spencer for the “complete lie”.
In a statement to HuffPost UK on Tuesday afternoon, Earl Spencer’s team maintained that his “account of his conversation with Piers Morgan is accurate”, insisting that “Mr Morgan was surly and annoyed when Earl Spencer called personally to tell him that he was not welcome at his sister’s funeral”.
The statement went on to say: “The book then records Earl Spencer’s assumption that Mr Morgan’s response was because he was editor of the Daily Mirror when the Mirror Group had published highly intrusive photographs of Princess Diana at the gym. The photographs were published by the Sunday Mirror on 7 November 1993. Mr Morgan has pointed out that he did not join the Daily Mirror until October 1995.
“As an historian, accuracy is important to Earl Spencer. He therefore wishes to clarify that his assumption was incorrect. Earl Spencer apologises to Mr Morgan for this error.”
HuffPost UK has contacted Piers Morgan’s team for additional comment.
Swan Song had already made headlines in the lead-up to its publication, particularly over one part in which Earl Spencer alleged that King Charles told him in the wake of Diana’s death that “we’ll forget her soon enough” – prompting a rare response from the Palace.
“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 colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss,” a royal rep said.
As part of a subsequent interview with ABC’s Maggie Rulli, Earl Spencer quipped that it’s “not every day you’re gaslit by a king”.
“I was really upset with that because I thought it was very, not only condescending, but not straight,” he noted.
