In what is being perceived as revenge for the hell he was put through at his theft trial -- at which he was acquitted last Friday -- former royal butler Paul Burrell launched a vitriolic attack on Princess Diana's family Thursday, calling them hypocritical, foul-mouthed and jealous, Reuters reports.
In his latest installment of "What The Butler Said" -- for which the tabloid Daily Mirror reportedly paid Burrell $625,000 -- the once-loyal servant to Diana expresses his scorn for Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, and his funeral speech for her.
"My stomach turned," says Burrell, 44, of Spencer's oration. "I thought 'Am I the only person here who thinks he is a hypocrite?'"
As for Spencer's memorial museum adjacent to her burial site at the ancestral Althorp estate, he writes: "I, for one, would not parade her life and charge 10.50 pounds a time."
Burrell goes on to reveal that Diana had requested that he eavesdrop on a phone conversation she was having with her mother, Frances Shand Kydd. "It was horrible. She was using the kind of language you would never expect to hear a mother ever say to a daughter."
The conversation concerned Diana's relationship with Muslim men, says Burrell.
He also recalls Diana's older sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, who once dated Prince Charles, as being jealous of Diana, telling her on her wedding day: "I thought all this would be mine one day."
Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan defended the publication of Burrell's stories.
Speaking on BBC TV, Morgan said: "When it comes to the Spencers, he believes they were quite happy to have him jailed, shut up, seen off and have his life ruined ... He is perfectly entitled to put the record straight and, as he says, settle the score with the Spencer family."
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