Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer and Karen Spencer arrive at the wedding of Prince Harry to Ms Meghan Markle at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018 in Windsor, England.Photo:Chris Jackson/Getty
Chris Jackson/Getty
• Karen Spencer and Charles Spencer were married for 13 years before he announced their split in June
• In her defense, Karen filed new court documents alleging that she was justified in sharing the information with a small circle given her shock regarding her husband’s alleged affair with Jarman
• In the new filing, Karen also accuses both Jarman and Charles Spencer of “bullying”
• Jarman and Charles Spencer slammed the new allegations to theDaily Mail
The High Court documents are part of Karen’s defense afterDr. Cat Jarman, Charles' current partner, sued Karen in October for alleged misuse of private information regarding Jarman’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis. In the new documents, Karen outlines the reasons she says she felt justified to discuss that information with her circle, given that she had just learned her husband was having an affair with Jarman, 42.
“Insofar as Lady Spencer shared the information in question with her immediate family, or close friends and associates, she did so in a way which was entirely justified and legitimate in the circumstances, as part of processing and coming to terms with her husband’s sudden and cruel request for a divorce,” Karen Spencer’s filing states. “Alternatively, given these circumstances, [Jarman] had no reasonable expectation of Lady Spencer not discussing the information in question with the limited group of individuals with whom she shared it.”
Charles Spencer and Dr. Cat Jarman.Charles Spencer/Instagram
Charles Spencer/Instagram
Cat alleged in a High Court claim that Karen revealed Jarman’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis without her permission, and she is now suing the countess for the unauthorized release of private information. In her defense to the claim, Karen alleged that Charles and Cat had been having an affair as far back as 2022, and possibly 2021 — which Karen claims she learned after contacting Cat’s husband, Tom Jarman, this past spring.
“Understandably, Lady Spencer was left shocked and devastated,” the documents read, adding “this news was hideous for Lady Spencer.”
After finding out about the alleged affair, Karen confronted Cat, as she “was at the time planning to stay in a house just a few hundred meters away from Lady Spencer’s home for a period of five weeks and have dinner in Althorp House itself while she and her daughter [with Spencer, 12-year-old Charlotte Diana] were still living there.” (After several years of marriage to Charles, Karen left her home in California to join him full time at Althorp, the Spencer family ancestral home, where Princess Diana and her siblings grew up.)
“Lady Spencer decided to confront [Cat] about the affair with her husband and explain to her that it would be inappropriate to come and have dinner in her home,” the documents continue, adding that Cat “did not deny the affair; instead she claimed that she was not the reason for the breakdown of her marriage.”
An email Karen allegedly sent to Cat was included in the court documents, which said in part, “First of all[,] as a woman, I just have to tell you that I am so disappointed in you. Turning all of the children’s lives upside down [like] this is so unbelievably immoral,” adding, “You clearly didn’t think this through.”
Calling her Charles’ “long-term mistress,” Karen said she wouldn’t have Cat at Althorp while she still lived there, adding of Cat’s relationship with Charles, “Good luck Cat, you’re in for a hell of a ride.”
Rich Polk/Getty
Karen has not publicly spoken about the divorce or Jarman’s subsequent lawsuit.
Instatements to theDaily Mailabout Karen’s new filing, both Charles and Cat fired back.
Charles and Cat, along with the Reverend Richard Coles, co-host the podcastThe Rabbit Hole Detectives, and Cat, an archaeologist, conducted an archaeological dig at Althorp.
In a Dec. 4 interview withThe Daily Mail, Cat spoke for the first time about her multiple sclerosis diagnosis, which she received in 2016 — calling the news “utterly devastating.”
“Since then I have worked very hard indeed to keep my MS hidden, as should be my prerogative. So only a handful of people have known — and Charles wasn’t one of them. I’d been seeing him, romantically, for only two months or three months, and still hadn’t told him,” she continued.
Dr. Cat Jarman.Marta Perez/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Marta Perez/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Cat claimed that Karen found out that she has MS “from someone close to me” during a conversation around whether Cat and Charles were having an affair (which Jarman insists didn’t happen). Karen then told Charles, according to Cat.
“But in the course of a conversation about whether I had been having an affair with her husband — which I can categorically say I had not been, we were very much just friends and colleagues until after the marriage had ended — Karen learned that I have MS. It was also confirmed to her that this was not something that was widely known. And yet she then went to Charles and said, ‘You do know she has MS, don’t you?’ ” Cat alleged toThe Daily Mail.
Cat further claimed that Karen shared the news of her MS diagnosis with “a number of people”: “I’m still not entirely sure who else she shared this private and sensitive information with, which is the point of this legal action," Cat toldThe Daily Mail.
After Charles allegedly found out about her diagnosis in May, Cat claimed she then spent the next five months trying to learn who Karen had told, which led to her lawyers sending letters (which she claims were ignored) before raising it to a lawsuit. On Oct. 10,The Telegraphreported thatCat filed a lawsuit against Karen, alleging misuse of private information.
Dr. Cat Jarman and Charles Spencer.Charles Spencer/Instagram
In June, Charlesannounced that he and Karen were divorcingafter 13 years of marriage. The former couple wed at Althorp in 2011 and share a 12-year-old daughter, Charlotte Diana. Both Charles and Karen were previously married — Charles, 60, shares four children with his first wife, Victoria Lockwood, and two children with his second wife, Caroline Freud, and Karen, 52, shares two daughters from her first marriage to Hollywood producer Mark Gordon.
“It is immensely sad,” Charles toldThe Mail on Sundayin the statement announcing that he and Karen were divorcing. “I just want to devote myself to all my children, and to my grandchildren, and I wish Karen every happiness in the future.”
In another twist to the story, Charlesreportedly retainedthe same divorce attorney thatKing Charlesdid when the future king and Princess Diana divorced in 1996.
Charles and Diana, Prince and Princess of Wales, pose outside Chateau de Chambord during their official visit to France on Nov. 9, 1988 in Chambord, France.Georges De Keerle/Getty
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Speaking on Nov. 24 toThe Mail on Sunday, Charles said of his relationship with Cat, “I’m too old for hearts and flowers stuff, but the best way to describe it is that with Cat, I can be myself.” He continued, “She knows who I am. Who I really am. I don’t have to pretend to be something I am not.”
source: people.com
