Princess Diana's younger brother described losing his sister as 'such an amputation' as he reflected on his 'sibling grief' today.
Earl Charles Spencer equally revealed that he always felt an intense need to protect Diana - and even intervened when a journalist wrote a 'horrendous article' about her.
Charles, 60, appeared on ITV's Loose Men - a variant of the channel's daily show Loose Women - which is back on screens to mark Mental Health Awareness week.
Reflecting on losing the sister he shared his childhood with, Charles 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.'
Describing losing a sibling as 'a really extraordinary thing', Charles recalled how, even years after his sister's untimely death at the age of 36, he would still think to pick up the phone and call her.
He said: ‘For years after Diana died, I would think, "I must ring her and tell her something," because we shared the same sense of humour.'
'You just realise, of course, that’s not going to happen,' he added.
A very young Earl Charles Spencer (left) pictured with his sister, the late Princess Diana
While Charles also grew up with two other sisters - Lady Sarah McCorquodale, 70, and Lady Jane Fellowes, 68 - he was much closer in age with Diana, who would have been 63 today, and said they grew up together.
He said: 'I don’t share my childhood with anyone anymore. That’s a great loss that you can never really put right.'
Charles, who last year published a harrowing account of the abuse he was subjected to at Maidwell Hall prep school, also told fellow panelist Craig Doyle about the responsibility he felt to protect Diana.
Despite being only 16 when Diana burst into 'the public light in 1981', Charles was eager to 'get stuck in' and 'deal with the photographers who were plaguing her.'
On another occasion, he really did get involved, contacting a journalist who had written 'a really horrendous article' about her himself.
He explained: '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.'
Charles regretted that Diana had become 'something to make money out of' and wrote an 'outraged letter' to the journalist, which developed into 'a bit of a to and fro'.
He concluded: ‘I think, particularly as a brother of a sister, you always feel like you want to get stuck in really.'
Charles (pictured) appeared on Loose Men today. The show has relaunched to mark Mental Health Awareness Week
Earl Charles Spencer and Princess Diana in November 1985
Earl Spencer's parents had five children between 1955 and 1964. Lady Sarah McCorquodale was born in 1955 and Lady Jane Fellowes followed two years later.
The couple's third child, John Spencer, died hours after being born in January, 1960.
The late Princess Diana was born in 1961 and the youngest, Earl Charles Spencer, was born in 1964.
The siblings' father John worked as a royal equerry for both King George VI and the young Queen Elizabeth II, and the family initially rented a home at the royal estate in Sandringham.
When Frances and John divorced, the two youngest Spencer siblings lived with their father, who Charles described as 'quiet and a constant source of love' in a 2020 interview with The Sunday Times.
