Princess Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, recently released his memoir, Swan Song, dedicated to the late Princess of Wales.
While promoting his new book, the 62-year-old British aristocrat was asked about the fictional portrayals of his big sister and if he had a favorite.
Spencer made it very clear he has never watched The Crown, despite its rave reviews, but he did have an actress he felt best embodied Princess Diana’s essence.
“I was on a plane, and I saw a movie called Spencer. I thought, ‘I better look at that.’ And there was Kristen Stewart, who doesn’t really look like Diana, but my goodness, she caught the spirit,” the 9th Earl of Spencer said at a McNally Jackson Books event. “I thought it was an incredible performance. The film’s terrible, but I was really intrigued by how good she was at capturing Diana.”
Five years after portraying Diana in the 2021 film, Stewart shared that she still feels “haunted” by the late royal.
“I still am. I can’t drive ’round this city, and Paris for that matter, without thinking about her,” she told The Telegraph in early 2026. “All the love that poured out of this woman… I can cry about her at any moment.”
Princess Diana died at the age of 36 in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997. Since then, she has been portrayed countless times by different actresses across TV and film, including Naomi Watts in Diana, Emma Corrin and Elizabeth Debicki in The Crown, and Nicola Formby in The Women of Windsor.
Ahead of the 30th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death, it is being reported that Prince Harry is working on a film about his mother, but it will be a documentary, so no actress is required. However, the Duke of Sussex has yet to confirm the project.