Earl Spencer has issued a formal apology to Piers Morgan after conceding he made a mistake in his explosive memoir about Princess Diana.
The error centred on Spencer’s claim that Morgan was editing the Daily Mirror when covertly taken photographs of Diana exercising in a leotard at a gym were published in 1993.
In reality, Morgan did not take the helm at the Daily Mirror until October 1995, meaning he bore no editorial responsibility for the images, which appeared in the Sunday Mirror on 7 November 1993.
At the time the photographs were printed, Morgan was in fact working as a showbiz columnist at The Sun.
Earl Spencer has issued a formal apology to Piers Morgan after conceding he made a factual mistake in his explosive memoir about Princess Diana.
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The apology came after Morgan threatened legal action on Monday, branding passages in the book “fabricated inaccuracies” and accusing Spencer of “brazen falsity” that undermined the memoir’s credibility.
A spokesperson for Earl Spencer confirmed the apology in a statement, while maintaining that the Earl’s description of his phone call with Morgan ahead of Diana’s funeral remained truthful.
“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 spokesperson said.
The statement went on to explain that Spencer’s book had recorded his own assumption that Morgan’s irritable reaction stemmed from guilt over the gym photographs, believing him to have been editor when they were published.
The apology came after Morgan threatened legal action on Monday, branding passages in the book “fabricated inaccuracies” and accusing Spencer of “brazen falsity” that undermined the memoir’s credibility.
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However, the spokesperson acknowledged that Morgan had rightly pointed out he did not begin working at Mirror Group until two years after the images appeared. “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,” the statement concluded.
Despite the apology, Piers Morgan has reiterated that he will continue to pursue legal action against Earl Spencer.
He wrote on social media this afternoon: “Earl Spencer has apologised to me for his defamatory lies published in his new book, Swan Song, published today.
“But I am pursuing legal action against him and his publisher Penguin to have the lies removed, and damages paid to the King’s Trust.”
Piers Morgan had hit out against Spencer on Monday via his Piers Morgan Uncensored YouTube programme, declaring his intention to pursue legal action over the memoir’s contents.
He argued the book was riddled with factual errors “which will strike to the heart of [Lord Spencer’s] credibility.”
Reading from the relevant passage, Morgan noted that Spencer had attributed the publication of the gym photographs to him personally, a claim he dismissed in characteristically blunt fashion.
“I come across in the most despicable manner imaginable. There’s just one problem. It’s all b******t and very, very easy b******t for me to prove it,” he said.
Morgan stressed that when the Sunday Mirror ran the covertly captured images on 7 November 1993, he was penning a showbiz column for The Sun, a position he described as “about as far removed from responsibility for the Mirror scoop as I could possibly have been.”
Morgan also took aim at Spencer’s broader portrayal of events surrounding Diana’s funeral, recalling how the Earl had telephoned tabloid editors to withdraw their invitations to the service.
In his memoir, Spencer wrote that most editors sounded “merely confused or embarrassed” upon receiving the call, but singled out Morgan as the sole editor who “snarled with annoyance before he hung up.”