Princess Diana considered taking her own life during some of the darkest years of her troubled royal marriage — but thoughts of her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, kept her from going further, according to an emotional new claim from her brother.
Charles Spencer makes the revelation in his newly released memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, offering a deeply personal account of the late princess’s struggles behind palace walls.
Spencer claims Diana drove more than once to Beachy Head, the dramatic clifftop on England’s southern coast, while contemplating ending her life.
According to her brother, however, Diana’s devotion to William and Harry ultimately stopped her.
The location adds a chilling dimension to Spencer’s account. Beachy Head, near Eastbourne in East Sussex, rises roughly 531 feet above sea level and is officially described as Britain’s highest chalk sea cliff.
Spencer’s claim has not been independently verified, and Diana is not known to have publicly discussed the alleged Beachy Head trips herself. But her struggles with depression, an eating disorder and self-harm during her marriage were documented in her own words years before her 1997 death.
Diana secretly recorded a series of conversations that were used by biographer Andrew Morton for his bombshell 1992 book Diana: Her True Story. Morton later revealed that Diana herself had been behind much of the explosive material in the biography.
In those recordings, Diana described suffering severely during the early years of her marriage and struggling with bulimia. She also spoke about harming herself while in an intensely distressed emotional state.
Diana later addressed her eating disorder publicly during her famous 1995 BBC Panorama interview, describing bulimia as a symptom of what was happening inside her and connecting it to feelings of inadequacy and unhappiness.
Spencer now paints an even darker picture of that period.
In Swan Song, he describes his sister as increasingly isolated as her marriage to the then-Prince Charles deteriorated. He writes that Diana believed her husband could be distant and critical and that she struggled under the extraordinary pressure of royal life and worldwide fame.
Diana was just 20 years old when she married Charles in July 1981.
William was born the following year, followed by Harry in 1984. The couple formally separated in 1992 and finalized their divorce in 1996.
Diana died in a car crash in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997, at the age of 36. William was 15 and Harry was 12 at the time.
Nearly three decades later, Spencer says motherhood was one of the most powerful forces in his sister’s life — including, he claims, during moments when she was at her lowest.
Swan Song: Diana, My Sister was released in the United States on Sept. 22 by Penguin Press. The 384-page memoir covers the siblings’ childhood, their parents’ divorce, Diana’s royal marriage, her relationship with her sons and the turbulent days surrounding her death and funeral.
The publisher describes the book as Spencer’s account of Diana’s life from the perspective of the younger brother who grew up alongside her.
The memoir has already generated controversy because Spencer makes a number of serious claims about Diana’s marriage and the royal family’s behavior following her death. Buckingham Palace has disputed at least some of Spencer’s recollections, arguing that grief can affect memory and judgment.
Spencer has stood by his account, saying publicly that he believes he is accurately recounting events he witnessed.
His claim about Beachy Head nevertheless remains his personal account of Diana’s state of mind rather than something independently established.
What is already part of the historical record is Diana’s own willingness to speak about emotional distress and eating disorders at a time when members of the royal family rarely discussed such subjects publicly.
Years before conversations about mental health became commonplace among public figures, Diana spoke openly about bulimia and the emotional pain she experienced behind the carefully managed image of royal life.
Spencer’s new book now adds another painful chapter to that story — and claims that, during Diana’s most desperate moments, William and Harry were the reason she kept going.
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