Diana died in the early hours of August 31, 1997 after being injured in a crash in a road tunnel in Paris.
Her partner, Dodi Fayed, and the driver of the Mercedes-Benz W140, Henri Paul, were pronounced dead at the scene while their bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, survived with serious injuries.
Speaking about his grief on ITV’s Loose Men, Spencer, 60, said: “It’s such an amputation. You grow up with these people, they are your flesh and blood, they’re with you forever, and then they’re gone.
“You expect obviously first grandparents and then parents to go, and there’s the awful tragedy… of children going, but siblings, it’s a really extraordinary thing.
Diana, Princess of Wales died in August 1997 (PA)
“For years after Diana died, I would think, ‘Oh I must ring her and tell her something’ because we shared the same sense of humour, and you just realise of course that’s not going to happen.
“I have two sisters who I adore but they’re quite a lot older than me, so I don’t share my childhood with anyone anymore, and that’s a great loss that you can never really put right.”
Asked how he dealt with protecting Diana, he said: “I remember just before she died, a female journalist wrote a really horrendous article, because by that stage I don’t think that journalist was thinking of Diana as a person, she was something to make money off or whatever, and I wrote to her in outrage… I think particularly as a brother of a sister, you always feel like you want to get stuck in really.”
Diana’s life has inspired countless films and TV series. Most recently, the events leading up to her death were portrayed in the final series of hit Netflix drama The Crown.
Earl Spencer appeared as a panellist on the ITV show alongside reality TV star Sam Thompson, This Morning presenter Craig Doyle and TV doctor Amir Khan.
The special programme, a rebrand of ITV chat show Loose Women, tackled subjects including modern fatherhood, couples’ counselling, and men’s physical and mental health, with I’m A Celebrity winner Thompson discussing his ADHD diagnosis.
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