A Legacy of Quiet Observation: Charlotte Echoes Diana's Childhood

Charles Spencer dropped plenty of royal bombshells in his new book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, but one of the sweeter details involves a story about Princess Diana and their father, John Spencer.

Charles, who became the 9th Earl Spencer after his father’s death, wrote that when his parents were still together, they had many “points of difference.” Diana and Charles’s mother, Frances Shand Kydd, “preferred to be at home,” Earl Spencer said, but John loved to travel—and after one solo trip, a young Diana “snapped.”

Their father had been traveling in Turkey on his own, since Charles was sick and Frances decided to stay back with him. Explaining that the late earl “chose not to shave during his time away,” the Swan Song author continued that the family was surprised to welcome him home “with a reddish beard and moustache.”

“Diana pointed at the facial hair and snapped: ‘Take that thing off!’” Earl Spencer wrote.

Ironically, Princess Diana’s reaction to facial hair would be repeated by her granddaughter, Princess Charlotte, decades later. When Prince William debuted his own beard, he admitted that it didn’t go down well with his only daughter.

The Prince of Wales first showed off his facial hair in an August 2024 video for the Paris Olympic Games, but when he attended a church service later that month, his fan-favorite beard was gone. By September he was back to being team beard (and has been since), and the Prince of Wales explained why he briefly went clean-shaven.

“Well Charlotte didn’t like it the first time,” Prince William said, sharing that there were “floods of tears” from his then-9-year-old daughter. The princess was so upset about his makeover that William decided to “shave it off,” but later had a change of heart.

“I thought, hang on a second, and I convinced her it was going to be okay,” he shared. As for John Spencer, it seems that he might have gone the same route as Prince William’s knee-jerk reaction, as he remained clean-shaven in photos through the years.