Princess Diana’s Brother, Charles Spencer, Will Divorce Karen Spencer

Weekend that he and wife Karen Spencer plan to divorce after nearly 13 years of marriage. 

The Earl Spencer has been married three times, and publicly broke the news of the split on Saturday with an interview in the U.K.’s Mail on Sunday. “It is immensely sad,” Charles told the outlet of the pending parting. “I just want to devote myself to all my children and to my grandchildren, and I wish Karen every happiness in the future.” 

The Earl Spencer and the former Karen Gordon wed in June 2011, about a year after meeting on a blind date in Los Angeles. The two are parents to 12-year-old daughter Charlotte Diana, who is named in honor of the late Princess of Wales. Karen has two daughters from a previous marriage, and Charles has six more children from his first two wives. 

In March, Charles released a memoir, A Very Private School, in which he detailed alleged abuse as a young boy at a boarding school. The process of writing the book, he said, was incredibly difficult and unearthed repressed trauma. He spoke to People around the memoir’s release and praised his soon-to-be-ex-wife for her support. “Karen has been supportive,” he said. 

“I think it was very challenging for her to have a husband going through what was essentially four-and-a-half years of the most profound therapy with very difficult undertones to it. And she supported the idea of me doing it.” “I think she always hoped I would come out happier and healthier,” he said, “and that seems to be the case very much. 

So I’m grateful to have her standing by me while I went through this, what I now realize was an essential process.” 

Meanwhile, the Mail on Sunday reported, Charles “has recently become close to Norwegian archaeologist Cat Jarman,” who co-hosts the history podcast The Rabbit Hole Detectives with himself and Rev. Richard Coles. According to the outlet, “friends say they look very happy together but that it is early days.”