Piers Morgan Pursues Defamation Suit Over 2nd-Edition Fix to Spencer Memoir

Q: What really happened in the secret 1997 phone call between Diana's brother and the tabloid editor?

No one outside Charles Spencer and Piers Morgan knows for certain, and their accounts flatly conflict. Spencer says that after Diana’s death in 1997 he personally phoned newspaper editors to tell them they were no longer invited to her funeral, and that Morgan reacted badly. In *Swan Song*, Spencer wrote that Morgan was “surly and annoyed” and “snarled with annoyance” before hanging up. Spencer has publicly stood by that description, even while apologizing for a separate factual error in the book that wrongly linked Morgan to the 1993 *Sunday Mirror* gym photographs of Diana. Morgan denies Spencer’s version. He says he was “neither surly nor annoyed,” but respectful and sympathetic, and that the call ended with condolences being passed to Spencer’s mother. Morgan has argued that Spencer’s admitted mistake about the 1993 photos weakens confidence in Spencer’s memory of the 1997 call as well. What is established is narrower: Spencer has admitted he was wrong to identify Morgan as the *Daily Mirror* editor responsible at the time the intrusive Diana gym photos were published; Morgan was at *The Sun* then and only became *Daily Mirror* editor in 1995. But Spencer has not withdrawn his account of Morgan’s manner on the funeral call. So the best evidence available publicly is two irreconcilable personal recollections, with no independent recording or contemporaneous document released to settle the dispute.

3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Oct 1

Piers Morgan said Charles Spencer’s apology is not enough and that he is still pursuing legal action to force “Swan Song” off sale and reissued without the disputed pages.
The dispute centers on Spencer’s false claim that Morgan edited the Daily Mirror when gym photos of Princess Diana were published in 1993; Morgan was then at The Sun, and Spencer says the passage will be corrected in a second edition.
Morgan also rejects Spencer’s account that he was “surly and annoyed” during a 1997 call about Diana’s funeral, and says any damages should go to The King’s Trust.
He argues the factual error undermines Spencer’s wider credibility, especially the memoir’s claim that then-Prince Charles said after Diana’s death, “We’ll forget her soon enough,” an account Spencer still says is true.