The brother of Princess Diana, Charles Spencer, opened up about growing up with his sister and the tough times they had been through.
Princess Diana and Charles Spencer took their parents’ divorce hard, especially when they were only kids. Speaking to The Sunday Times, the 56-year-old 9th Earl Spencer revealed the impact of that sad moment in their lives.
The hardships of their parents’ split
Princess Diana and Spencer’s parents, John Spencer, the 8th Earl Spencer, and Frances Shand Kydd parted ways in 1969.
“Diana and I had two older sisters who were away at school,” he told The Sunday Times. “So she and I were very much in it together, and I did talk to her about it.”
Their other sisters are Lady Sarah McCorquodale, 65, and Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes, 63.
Spencer recalled his father fondly looked after them, but there was some issue about their mother.
“Our father was a quiet and constant source of love, but our mother wasn’t cut out for maternity,” he said. “Not her fault, she couldn’t do it.”
When they split, Skydd promised the five-year-old Diana she would return to see her. Sadly, she never came back.
“Diana used to wait on the doorstep for her, but she never came,” he revealed.
In his old interview with People, Spencer disclosed their parents’ split was tough on the People’s Princess.
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Spencer working on himself after a ‘rough upbringing’
To move on from his rough upbringing, Spencer had been “in and out” of therapy for 20 years.
While he found the work to be “agonizing and horrible,” he noted that “the result has been cathartic.”
“Coming out the other side has been good,” the nobleman continued. “The one thing I’ve learned through all the stuff I’ve tackled is that very few people set out to be destructive.”
He used to feel that he needed to help others because of the “rough upbringing” he experienced.
Thankfully, everything changed when he met his third wife, Karen Villeneuve, who he married in 2011.
“We got engaged quickly, and I’m sure people thought, ‘Here he goes again,’ but I was confident,” he stressed.
Villeneuve had the same sentiments about their romance. She didn’t mind being Spencer’s third wife, as she was to her previous husband.
“Trust me on this — you really want to be the third, because men are so motivated at this point,” she explained.
If there’s one thing that was appealing for Villeneuve, it was that Spencer was willing to work on himself continuously.
“I love that we are a supportive partnership,” she added. “We’re both ambitious, and there’s been a lot of give and take.”
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