Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer reveals he paid a sex worker £15 to lose his virginity during a family trip to Italy at the age of 12
Princess Diana’s brother Earl Charles Spencer has revealed he paid a sex worker £15 to lose his virginity during a family trip to Italy at the age of 12.
The 59-year-old admits as much in a tell-all memoir of his childhood called ‘A Very Private School’, which will be released in Britain on March 14.
He will also tell how as an 11-year-old boy he was sexually abused by a young female assistant matron at the boys’ preparatory school Maidwell Hall, Northampton, in the 1970s.
In an American version of the book, that The sun Earl Spencer writes: ‘This woman’s control over mesmerized boys was total, for we had run out of feminine warmth and were desperate for her affection.’
Describing her as a “master of emotional manipulation,” he adds, “The effect of what she did to me was profound and immediate, awakening fundamental desires in me that should not have been in such a young girl.”
Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer (pictured) has revealed he paid a sex worker £15 to lose his virginity during a family trip to Italy at the age of 12
Princess Diana with her brother Earl Spencer in Windsor when the siblings were younger
The 59-year-old admits this in a memoir about his childhood called ‘A Very Private School’, which will be released in Britain on March 14.
Charles grew up with his older sister Diana, who said she always took care of him when they were young
Earl Spencer also claims the abuse often included French kissing and touching, while he said other boys were also victims.
But during a holiday to Italy with his mother and stepfather, he used his pocket money to pay a sex worker £15 to help him lose his virginity.
Earl Spencer, who found the sex worker on a street corner, says he felt “hollow and cold” afterwards and was not able to sleep with another woman until he was 17.
Diana’s brother described his school years as one of “casual cruelty, sexual assault and other perversions.”
And he revealed his nanny would smash their heads together when they were naughty as she thought it ‘introduced fear and pain into our spoiled lives’.
Earl Spencer is the younger brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, and therefore the uncle of Prince William and Prince Harry.
Charles is pictured with his father, the 8th Earl Spencer, in the estate’s wine cellars
Charles attended Eton College, during which time his sister Diana married Prince Charles when she was 20 years old (Charles pictured at Eton)
He went on to read modern history at Magdalen College, Oxford, but admitted he spent very little time on his studies (pictured on the first day of his Oxford final)
Charles meets the late Queen and Queen Mother at the Eton Boys’ Tea Party in 1978
It’s been 27 years since Princess Diana died at the age of 36, when the car she was driving crashed into a Paris tunnel on August 31, 1997.
As heir to the title Earl Spencer, Princess Diana’s younger brother spent his childhood on the vast family estate he would one day inherit.
But life in Althorp was not as blissful as it sounds. Diana said she would always see her mother crying while her brother described the house as a “nightmarish place.”
Charles inherited his father’s title when he was just 27 years old, but instead of aristocratic comfort, his adult life brought similar tumult, including two failed marriages, an aborted engagement and the tragic death of his older sister.
Charles left for boarding school at the age of eight and had six months of sleepless nights before going to Maidwell Hall.
Along with the latest allegations about his time at Maidwell Hall, he previously told TES magazine: ‘I said I wanted to go to a state school because that was preferable to thirteen weeks blocks away in a rather cold and unpleasant place.’
Instead of going to public school, he went to Eton College, where Diana married Prince Charles at the age of 20.
After school he got a place at Magdalen College, Oxford to read modern history, but admitted he spent very little time on his studies.
“I actually feel quite guilty about Oxford,” he told The Times.
‘I was very much the conventional Old Etonian: quite efficient at exams, got admitted and then did very little work. And then at the end I had to do a lot to make sure I was okay.”
While studying at university he was invited to join the infamous Bullingdon Club along with former Prime Ministers David Cameron and Boris Johnson, a friend from school with whom the Earl is still close, but he turned down the offer .
His old roommate Andrew MacDonald told Maclean’s that Charles, thanks to a sense of “social validity” and “deep self-confidence,” “didn’t want to hang out with those people.”
He started working as a journalist and anchor, spent ten years at American TV Network NBC News as an on-air correspondent and wrote scripts for his pieces on the Today show.
Charles was pictured with Diana, Prince Charles and his sisters Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes for his 21st birthday
Earl Spencer and his older sister Diana have spoken out about their unhappy childhood
Earl Spencer was pictured addressing journalists outside his Cape Town home after Diana’s death
He walked behind the carriage carrying Diana’s coffin next to Prince Philip, Prince William, Prince Harry and Prince Charles
Charles Spencer married his third wife, Karen Gordon, in 2011 (pictured together in 2017)
He has reviewed books for the Mail on Sunday and the Financial Times and has written his own history books, including Althorp: The Story of an English House.
Despite not joining the club himself, he befriended Darius Guppy, member of Bullingdon and fellow Eton alumnus, who was arrested in 1993 for orchestrating a counterfeit jewelery heist while working as a gem dealer, which led to Lloyd’s of London paid out £1.8 million.
The fraudster had been best man at Earl Spencer’s wedding to Victoria Lockwood in 1989, but their friendship was derailed when Darius accused Charles of seducing his wife Patricia while he was in prison.
The disagreement culminated in a clash on the manicured lawns of Darius’ mansion, leaving Charles with two black eyes, a broken cheekbone and a concussion.
“I miss all the friends I don’t see anymore, but there are things friends just don’t do,” Darius told The Telegraph.
‘He crossed the line. But whatever happened between us, the secrets shared by all my friends will go with me to the grave.”