Charles Edward Maurice Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer (born 20 May 1964), styled Viscount Althorp between 1975 and 1992, is a British peer, author, journalist, and broadcaster. He is the younger brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the maternal uncle of William, Prince of Wales, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex.
Charles Edward Maurice Spencer was born on 20 May 1964 in Marylebone, London, the youngest of five children of John Spencer (1924–1992) and Frances Roche (1936–2004; later Shand Kydd). Because of his maternal family's close personal connection to the royal family, he was baptised at Westminster Abbey, with Queen Elizabeth II serving as one of his godmothers. He grew up with three elder sisters, Sarah, Jane, and Diana. An elder brother, John, had been born four years before him, but died 10 hours after birth, leaving Charles as the eventual heir to the earldom.
Spencer was three years old when his parents' troubled marriage ended in divorce following his mother's affair with Peter Shand Kydd. In 1975, Spencer became styled Viscount Althorp when his father succeeded as Earl Spencer on the death of his paternal grandfather. He began his formal education at Silfield Private School in King's Lynn, Norfolk, and from the age of eight attended the boy's private boarding school Maidwell Hall in Northamptonshire. He was later educated at Eton College, and read Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford.
In his memoir A Very Private School, published in March 2024, Spencer described the violent beatings, sexual abuse, "culture of cruelty", "hopelessness and abandonment", and the absence of affection he experienced at Maidwell Hall, one of England's most prestigious boarding schools.
Spencer worked as an on-air correspondent with NBC News from 1986 to 1995, primarily for the network's morning programme, Today and NBC Nightly News. He wrote and presented the 12-part documentary series Great Houses of the World (1994–1995) for NBC Super Channel. He also worked as a reporter for Granada Television from 1991 to 1993.
Spencer has written several book reviews for The Guardian and The Independent on Sunday, as well as feature stories for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, and American publications such as Vanity Fair, Verandah, and Nest.
Upon his father's death on 29 March 1992, Spencer succeeded as 9th Earl Spencer. He also inherited Althorp, the family's ancestral seat in Northamptonshire. Since 2009, he has restored Althorp, re-roofing it and restoring its entire exterior for the first time since the 1780s. He has also helped establish Althorp Living History, a handmade fine-furniture line reproducing pieces from the collection at Althorp. The Spencer family's wealth derived from their profitable sheep farming in the Tudor era.
On 31 August 1997, his older sister Diana died after a car crash in Paris, and Spencer delivered the eulogy at her funeral service held at Westminster Abbey six days later. In his eulogy he rebuked both Britain's royal family and the press for their treatment of his sister. Spencer ruled out conspiracy theories concerning his sister's death, and called the alleged letter she wrote 10 months before her death, in which she discussed her fears of a planned accident, "just a bizarre coincidence rather than tied in with reality." Spencer received an apology from Tim Davie, the BBC's director general, in late 2020 for the unethical practices used by BBC staff to gain his sister's consent to "An Interview with HRH The Princess of Wales" in November 1995 for the corporation's Panorama television programme. Former BBC chairman Michael Grade said a full inquiry should be conducted, which Davie has said will happen.
Spencer was a member of the House of Lords from 29 March 1992, the day his father died and he inherited the peerage, until the House of Lords Act 1999 excluded most hereditary peers on 11 November 1999.
On several occasions, Spencer has been accused of refusing to allow his sister Diana to live in a cottage on the Althorp estate, despite her request at the height of her emotional difficulties. These allegations have repeatedly been proven to be untrue, as seen in an apology published by The Times in 2021, admitting that "having considered his sister's safety, and in line with police advice, Spencer offered the Princess of Wales a number of properties included Wormleighton Manor (in Warwickshire), the Spencer family's original ancestral home".
Diana was buried on an island in a lake on Spencer's ancestral estate, Althorp, where he built a garden temple memorial and a museum to her memory, displaying her wedding dress and other personal effects. The museum was opened to the public in 1998, with all profits going to Diana's Memorial Fund, also set up by Spencer; the museum has since closed. At this stage, Spencer began writing a series of books dealing with the estate itself and with his family history, beginning with an account of his ancestral home, Althorp: the Story of an English House, published in 1998.
In 2003, Spencer founded the Althorp Literary Festival. Speakers at the annual event have included the authors Bill Bryson, Helen Fielding, Antonia Fraser, and Boris Johnson. In 2004, he presented two documentaries for the History Channel on Blenheim: Battle for Europe.
Spencer was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Northamptonshire in November 2005; the Spencer family have had a long association with the county, the home of the family seat. Spencer is also a patron of the Northamptonshire County Cricket Club. In 2021, Spencer authored an audiovisual walking tour for St. James's Park about the execution of Charles I, entitled Death of a King: The Path to Execution, on the BARDEUM mobile app.
In 2023, he began presenting the podcast The Rabbit Hole Detectives with Richard Coles and Cat Jarman, in which each of them is given an obscure topic and they then discuss their findings. In May 2025, Spencer joined the panel of ITV's Loose Men, a male version of the channel's Loose Women programme.
Spencer's memoir of Diana, Swan Song, is due to be published on 22 September 2026. In extracts released ahead of publication, Spencer alleged that the then Prince Charles said "we'll forget her soon enough" in a phone call with him after her death, describing him as sounding "giddily elated" and as if he were a "lottery winner".
Spencer has seven children from three marriages, and is married a fourth time.
On 16 September 1989, Spencer, then known by the courtesy title of Viscount Althorp, married Victoria Lockwood (born 20 April 1965). Spencer and Lockwood were divorced on 3 December 1997, with Diana's death occurring while the case was in progress. After the divorce, Spencer returned from Cape Town, South Africa, where he and Lockwood had relocated their family in 1995 to avoid media attention. It was alleged that Spencer had an extra-marital affair with a journalist early in the marriage. They have four children:
Lady Kitty Eleanor Spencer (born 28 December 1990); married Michael Lewis in 2021, and they have a daughter born in 2024.