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Princess Diana was deeply in love with then-Prince Charles when she married him in 1981, even after he allegedly told her the day before their wedding that he did not love her, according to her brother, Charles Spencer.
The 9th Earl Spencer revisited his sister's relationship with the future King Charles III during a Sept. 28 appearance on CBS Mornings. Speaking to Gayle King, Spencer explained why he believes Diana went ahead with the wedding despite having doubts about the marriage.
According to Spencer, Diana had told him that Charles said to her, "I'm not in love with you, but I'm going to marry you anyway," just one day before they were due to marry at St. Paul's Cathedral.
Diana was 20 at the time, while Charles was 32. Spencer, who was 17 when his sister married, said Diana had virtually no romantic experience and that Charles was her "first big love."
"She was clearly, genuinely in love with Prince Charles, you see," Spencer said.
Diana had reportedly expressed concerns about the marriage to her father, but Spencer believes her feelings for Charles ultimately influenced her decision to go through with it.
"I think, with Diana, she was very much somebody of the heart," he explained. "She led with the heart, and she was really her own person," adding that "maybe she thought it would be okay."
Spencer's comments come as his new memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, brings renewed attention to some of the most painful chapters of Diana's life.
The book includes several claims about her marriage and its aftermath, including Spencer's account of a conversation in which Diana allegedly told him that her husband was "in love with his valet." Spencer also writes about a phone conversation he says he had with Charles following Diana's death in 1997, claiming the then-Prince sounded "giddily elated" and later told him, "Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough."
Buckingham Palace has pushed back against some of Spencer's recollections, saying that grief can "cloud reason, affect judgment and color memory" many years after a loss.
Spencer has defended his account and said he was not writing the memoir out of bitterness toward the royal family.
