EXCLUSIVE: Princess Diana's Funeral Secrets Exposed — Including Rival Family Wars, Prince Philip's Furious Outburst and Her Brother's Emotion-Packed Eulogy
Diana's funeral secrets have emerged, from family feuds and Prince Philip's outburst to her brother's emotional eulogy.
Sept. 4 2025, Published 4:45 p.m. ET
Princess Diana's funeral has been remembered for its solemn grandeur and global audience of 2.5 billion, but behind the scenes, it was marked by bitter family rivalries, a furious outburst from Prince Philip, and an incendiary eulogy from her brother Charles Spencer, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
Diana died in a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997, aged just 36.
Diana's Funeral Modeled On Queen Mother's Long-Rehearsed Plan
Diana’s 1997 funeral drew a global audience of 2.5 billion.
Her funeral, held one week later, was assembled in haste and modeled in part on plans long rehearsed for the Queen Mother.
Yet tensions between the Spencer family and the Windsors, already strained by Diana's divorce from Prince Charles, exploded in the days before the ceremony.
Arguments raged over prayers, flags, and even which royals would walk behind her coffin.
"The week was chaos behind the black drapes," a source claimed. The Windsors wanted a traditional royal farewell, while the Spencers demanded something that spoke to Diana's life. What should have been a moment of unity turned into a tug of war."
Debate Erupts Over William and Harry's Painful Coffin Walk
The young princes walked behind their mother's coffin in a historic moment.
Royal author Tina Brown also described the feud in her book Palace Papers, noting the Spencer family objected to references to the Royal Family in the Abbey prayers and insisted on flying their own flag above Diana's coffin.
Buckingham Palace retaliated by pushing for their own prayer and seeking to strike the words "People's Princess" to describe the tragic royal, a phrase popularized by then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Disputes also centered on whether the young princes – William, then 15, and Harry, then 12 – should walk behind Diana's coffin.
According to Brown, Philip erupted during one argument, shouting at flunkies: "Stop telling us what to do with those boys. They have lost their mother!"
Insiders described it as a rare flash of grandfatherly emotion from the Duke of Edinburgh, who had himself lost his mother as a child.
Spencer's Eulogy Stuns Royals
Charles Spencer's eulogy stunned the monarchy.
Spencer's address at Westminster Abbey also stunned the monarchy and electrified the public.
Denouncing the press and pointedly criticizing the Royal Family, he pledged to protect William and Harry from the "duty and tradition" that had consumed their mother.
"His speech was a grenade hurled at the House of Windsor," Brown wrote. Senior royals sat in stony silence, while the young princes applauded.
Spencer later revealed he had rehearsed the speech privately at Diana's coffin in St James's Palace.
He has also claimed he was misled by palace officials into believing his nephews wanted to join the procession, a decision he described as the "most horrifying half hour" of his life.
"I was told the boys wanted to do it, which wasn't true," he later said. "It was cruel and bizarre."
Diana Laid To Rest At Althorp Amid Spencer–Windsor Rift
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Divisions from Diana's funeral continue to echo decades later.
In the end, Philip persuaded William and Harry to walk behind their mother's coffin in front of the world by stressing the historical importance of the images that would be remembered from the ceremony.
For Harry in particular, the trauma remains over the decision.
He has since spoken of the agony of that walk, while acknowledging the monarchy's need for a public display of dynastic unity.
Diana's burial place also reflected the rift. Originally intended for the Spencer family vault, she was instead laid to rest on an island at Althorp, her childhood home, to ensure privacy for her sons.
Twenty-eight years on, the divisions exposed at Diana's funeral still echo through relations between the Spencers and the Windsors – and through the lives of her now-estranged sons.
