The row between Piers Morgan and Earl Spencer over the Princess Diana memoir Swan Song took a turn on Wednesday, when the broadcaster shared legal correspondence online.
Piers Morgan made the private letters public after Earl Spencer told an audience at a New York book event on Tuesday that he was not facing legal action.
Speaking with former magazine editor Tina Brown, the Earl flatly denied that Mr Morgan was suing him.
However, Mr Morgan insisted the publication of the letters was justified, stating on X: “Given Earl Spencer has denied I’m taking legal action, I have decided the legal correspondence should be published to correct his latest lie.”
The row between Piers Morgan and Earl Spencer over the Princess Diana memoir Swan Song took a turn on Wednesday, when the broadcaster shared legal correspondence online.
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The pair have been embroiled in an increasingly bitter public dispute since Earl Spencer’s book hit shelves on September 22.
The memoir, subtitled Diana, My Sister, contained claims about Piers Morgan that he says are both false and defamatory.
Among them were allegations linking him to the publication of intrusive photographs of the late Princess in the Daily Mirror in 1993, when he was in fact working at The Sun and had not yet joined the rival tabloid.
Earl Spencer also described Mr Morgan’s attitude as “surly” when asked not to attend Diana’s funeral.
The memoir, subtitled Diana, My Sister, contained claims about Piers Morgan that he says are both false and defamatory.
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GETTY
The Earl acknowledged his error last week and apologised, pledging to amend the text in future editions and stressing that accuracy mattered to him as a historian.
Mr Morgan, however, dismissed the offer as wholly inadequate. “As things stand, he’s made no offer to do anything other than to amend things for a second edition,” he told The Telegraph’s Daily T podcast. “That’s just not good enough.”
He further alleged that the Royal Family were “spitting blood” over the book, which he claimed they believed had been written to “destroy” the King’s reputation.
The legal correspondence, exchanged between Mr Morgan’s firm Schillings and Penguin’s representatives at Wiggin, revealed that on the day of publication Mr Morgan’s lawyers demanded immediate action over what they called “false, defamatory and indefensible” statements.
Schillings called for the book to be withdrawn from sale entirely and for unspecified damages to be paid to The King’s Trust, along with legal costs.
Wiggin’s response confirmed that the factual error regarding the photographs would be corrected in reprints, the paperback edition, and digital formats including the audiobook and ebook.
However, the publisher’s lawyers maintained there were no grounds for a viable defamation claim.
They also pointed out that Mr Morgan himself had promoted the error and Spencer’s subsequent apology “very extensively on his own YouTube show and throughout the national and international media”.
Schillings responded by intensifying its demands, arguing that the book’s claims “falsely associate” Mr Morgan with “one of the most notorious invasions of Diana’s privacy and imply both responsibility for and lack of remorse about that conduct.”
The firm contended that the allegations amounted to an assault on Mr Morgan’s professional reputation and integrity, and that once the factual mistake had been conceded, continuing to sell the book for profit was unjustifiable.
Earl Spencer’s publishers have shown no sign of backing down. The Telegraph understands that Penguin has no intention of pulling the memoir from shelves, and the Earl maintains his position that he has not been sued.