Princess Diana’s brother, Earl Charles Spencer, and his wife of 13 years, Karen Gordon, have filed for divorce.
The 60-year-old confirmed the personal news after reportedly making an announcement to staff at the Spencer’s Althorp Estate in April.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Earl Charles Spencer shares touching tribute.
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The estate in Northampton is where Diana, who died in a car crash in 1997, is buried on an artificial island in the middle of Althorp’s Oval Lake.
“It is immensely sad,” the Earl said in a statement to Daily Mail on Saturday.
“I just want to devote myself to all my children, and to my grandchildren, and I wish Karen every happiness in the future.”
Spencer and Canadian philanthropist Gordon share one child together, Charlotte Diana, 12, whose name is a tribute to the Earl’s late sister.
He is also the father of four children from his first marriage to Victoria Lockwood and two children with his second wife, Caroline Freud.
Gordon has two children from her first marriage to producer Mark Gordon, known for the movies Saving Private Ryan and Steve Jobs.
The exes met on a blind date in 2010 when Spencer was in Los Angeles. They wed the following year.
According to the Daily Mail, the 13-year relationship began to crumble when Spencer penned his memoir in A Very Private School, that was released in April after nearly five years of writing.
Spencer recalled losing his virginity to a sex worker aged 12 and writes of physical and sexual abuse while a student at a British boarding school.
He claimed a female nurse would touch and french kiss him when he was aged 11, describing her as a “master of manipulation”.
“This woman’s control over mesmerised boys was total, for we were starved of feminine warmth and desperate for her affection,” he said.
Promoting his book in March, Spencer spoke of his “supportive” wife Gordon through the lengthy process.
“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,” he told People.
“I think she always hoped I would come out happier and healthier 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 realise was an essential process.”