Princess Diana’s marriage to now King Charles III did more than catapult her into global fame, it transformed the future of her entire family, including her brother Charles Spencer, who has now admitted his own career was launched directly because of the royal union.
Speaking on the Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth podcast, the 61-year-old Earl reflected on how life shifted for the Spencer clan the moment Diana entered the House of Windsor.
“Leaving the tragedy of 28 years aside, it was an extraordinary thing for my family,” he said, adding bluntly, “I had a career off the back of it.”
Before Diana was Princess of Wales, Charles Spencer was working quietly in the music industry. But everything changed when American news networks scrambled for insiders to cover royal events connected to the newly minted royal couple.
He revealed that NBC first hired him as a temporary correspondent to help with coverage of the 1986 wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. Initially hired for one month, Spencer was asked to provide commentary during the live broadcast.
That last-minute assignment turned into a career-defining moment. As viewers waited for Andrew and Fergie to appear on the Buckingham Palace balcony, rival US networks ABC and CBS cut to commercials, having run out of commentary. NBC alone remained live because Spencer was still talking.
“I was still wittering on about God knows what when they came out on the balcony to kiss,” he recalled with a laugh. NBC ended up being the only network broadcasting the now-iconic public kiss in real time.
That single stroke of timing changed the course of Spencer’s life. “The executive producer said, ‘Oh my God… I’m going to give you a job,’” Spencer recalled. “And that morphed into a 10-year career.”
For a full decade Charles Spencer served as a correspondent for NBC, a career he says he owes entirely to his sister’s royal marriage and the global spotlight it created.
While Diana’s life ended in tragedy, her marriage to Charles rewired the fate of everyone around her including the brother who watched her become Princess of Wales and then rode the wave she created onto international airwaves.
