Harry and Meghan need protection to avoid Diana’s ordeal, Earl Spencer says

London: The brother of Princess Diana said her son, Prince Harry, and his American wife Meghan should be given official security as they are now treated by the media much in the same way as his late sister was in the years before her death.

Earl Spencer said the tabloid treatment of both Diana and Harry and Meghan could be “really, really unpleasant”, and that it was “beholden on people” to learn from that experience.

Diana died aged 36 in a 1997 Paris car crash as photographers pursued her car on motorbikes, and her death sparked an outpouring of grief and a reckoning over whether the media bore some responsibility after it splashed details of her life across front pages for years.

“From a security aspect, as an uncle who’s seen his sister die in very, very preventable circumstances, I would veer towards protection,” Charles Spencer told the BBC, citing Harry’s position as fifth in line to the British throne and as a former soldier.

Spencer’s remarks came as he prepares to publish his book about Diana, which has been highly critical of her former husband, the now-King Charles, and after Harry and Meghan returned to live in Britain six years after they quit royal duties and moved to the US.

The earl’s book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister , has made headlines around the world after it accused Charles of making incendiary comments in the days after Diana’s death.

In the book, Spencer accused Diana’s former husband, the then Prince of Wales, of sounding “giddily elated” in the hours after her death and said an angry Charles had told Spencer at the time that the world would forget Diana soon enough .

In a rare move, the palace hit back by saying the King was “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”.

Asked by the BBC how he could prove the conversations took place, Spencer said he had included a specific line in his much-lauded eulogy at Diana’s funeral to counter Charles’ comments, ending the speech by saying she would “never be extinguished from our minds”.

Spencer said he wrote the book, ahead of the 30th anniversary of Diana’s death, to celebrate her life. He said their childhood had never had a dull moment: “We both have ADHD. She was never diagnosed, but clearly we did.”

The publication of the book and the surprise return of Harry and Meghan to Britain after their six years in the US pose a challenge for the King, who is still undergoing treatment for cancer .

Diana’s family accused the royals of showing a lack of support or care towards the late princess before her death, a charge that was repeated by Harry and Meghan before they quit royal duties in 2020 to move abroad.

Harry has criticised the government’s decision to strip him and his family of automatic police protection afforded to other senior royals, after he quit royal duties. Following a long-running legal battle, that move is now under review.

Last week, a security expert suggested that a full security detail for the Sussexes, comprising about 10 personnel, could cost up to £12 million ($22.5 million) per year.

“Given the circumstances of who they are, they would need police protection really because police can carry guns and protect them at a different level. Private protection can’t carry guns in this country,” Paul Lewis told the London Telegraph ’s Daily T podcast.

Spencer, who recently hosted the couple, has serialised his book through the Daily Mail , just months after Harry lost an expensive privacy lawsuit against the tabloid.

Spencer said his revelations about Charles would not come as a surprise to Harry or his older brother, the heir-to-the-throne Prince William, and said that while he knew many more details about the King, he chose not to include them.

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