Lady Eliza Spencer has revealed the heart wrenching response she gave when she was told about her aunt Princess Diana’s death.
The 32-year-old model is the daughter of Earl Charles Spencer, one of Princess Diana’s brothers. She was raised in Cape Town with her twin sister Lady Amelia, alongside sister Lady Kitty, brother Viscount Louis and half-brother Samuel Aitken.
“Princess Diana stayed with us in Cape Town, just a few months before she passed away”, Eliza told The Standard.
“We were five, but we remember going to the beach with her, and her being a very gentle and kind and sweet figure in our lives”.
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The family had relocated to South Africa to escape the spotlight. “Cape Town was very outdoorsy, laid-back, active — the polar opposite of our life in London”, Eliza said.
But their idyllic life would drastically alter following Princess Diana’s death. When Charles informed his children about the tragedy, Eliza said she responded in disbelief: “But not in real life, Daddy?”
Earl Spencer has also spoken publicly about the loss of his sister, describing her death as “an amputation”.
The twins would not talk more about their father, who went on to have two more children with his second wife Caroline Freud (ex-wife of PR guru Matthew Freud) and another with Canadian Karen Gordon, who he’s now divorcing.
The Earl was not present at Kitty’s wedding to businessman Michael Lewis in 2021, nor did he attend Amelia’s Cape Town wedding two years ago to fitness entrepreneur Greg Mallett.
Eliza, who has been with her boyfriend Channing Millerd for nine years, told The Standard that she’s open to marrying in South Africa too, but Italy and the South of France are also on the cards.
Twin trouble
The twins also revealed some light-hearted elements of their personal lives, including their childhood. “We’d swap places in classes and trick teachers”, Amelia confessed.
Doctors at St Mary’s Paddington, where the twins were born, said that the girls were non-identical. But last year a 23andMe DNA test confirmed that they in fact were.
“Getting confirmation brought us even closer, it made us feel we’re not going crazy because deep down we always knew — although it was a surprise to my parents”, Eliza said.
The twins confessed that their connection could have been “a bit much” for their partners to take in at the beginning. But now, the four are close, hanging out “as much as possible”.
Eliza said: “On weekends the boys will cook for us, we play tennis together. We all travel home to Cape Town together. It may sound very co-dependent, but it’s not — we just really are best friends”.
