Charles Spencer, brother of Princess Diana, called the anniversary of her shocking death his “least favourite day.”
See Princess Diana wax figure unveiled in Paris
Decades after her tragic death in Paris, Princess Diana was commemorated with a wax figure in the Grevin Museum.
Princess Diana’s brother is remembering his sister on the anniversary of her death.
Charles Spencer shared several photos of flags being flown at half-mast above Althorp House in Northamptonshire, England, Diana’s childhood home, on Aug. 31, 2026, the 29th anniversary of her death.
“31 August. My least favourite day,” he captioned the photos.
Diana, love interest Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul died in 1997 in Paris due to injuries from a car crash, after trying to flee paparazzi. The ex-wife of King Charles III, and mother of Prince William and Prince Harry, was 36.
Spencer is releasing a book about his sister’s life and death. “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister” will be released in September, marking the first time he has “spoken openly and at length” about Diana, according to publisher Penguin Michael Joseph, a division of Penguin Random House.
“I want to speak on Diana’s behalf and do so in an openly positive way,” Spencer said in a statement announcing the book. “The aim of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective.”
The shocking death of the beloved royal continues to have a lasting impact on the public, as well as her loved ones, decades later.
On March 15, Mother’s Day in the United Kingdom, William remembered Diana by sharing a never-before-seen photo of the 2-year-old future king and his mother in a field of flowers, circa 1984. “Remembering my mother, today and every day,” he captioned the photo. “Thinking of all those who are remembering someone they love today.”
In July, Harry opened up about how he remembers his mother, sharing that he and his wife, Duchess Meghan, and their two children honor Diana by making a lemon drizzle cake together every year. “”I think traditions are really, really important,” he said. “Especially when they’re sweet.”
In a 2023 “60 Minutes” interview, Harry opened up about feeling guilt after Diana’s death, and coming to fully understand the circumstances that led to it.
“The fact that the people that we were meeting were showing more emotion than we were showing, maybe more emotion than we even felt,” he said of meeting mourners outside Kensington Palace in London with William when they were children. But years later, he said, he started “to comprehend the position that she was as a mother, a single parent, looking after two boys with this intense media harassment. It wasn’t online then. It was very much physical. She was being chased.”
Contributing: Jennifer Hassan, USA TODAY