Ex-Butler to Diana's Sons: 'Grow Up'

By Stephen M. Silverman

Monday October 27, 2003 07:33 AM EST

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Paul Burrell's "A Royal Duty," excerpted in the current PEOPLE, hit bookstores in London Monday, much to the dismay of the royal family, reports Reuters.

Despite the criticism, Princess Diana's onetime faithful butler (and soon-to-be millionaire author) is shrugging off Princes William and Harry's accusations that the book is a "cold and overt betrayal" of their dead mother, Princess Diana.

In a TV interview to be broadcast in England Monday, Burrell said that "just one phone call" would have stopped him from going ahead with the book.

Burrell repeated that sentiment to Katie Couric on Monday morning's "Today" show in New York.

"A Royal Duty" includes a letter written by Diana predicting her own death in a car crash (10 months before she was killed in a Paris tunnel). There are also inside stories of her personal life, the breakup of her marriage to Prince Charles and samples of her private correspondence.

Last week, as excerpts from the book appeared in London's Mirror newspaper, Diana's sons William and Harry issued a stern statement criticizing Burrell and saying: "We cannot believe that Paul, who was entrusted with so much, could abuse his position in such a cold and overt betrayal."

They continued: "It is not only deeply painful for the two of us, but also for everyone else affected, and it would mortify our mother if she were alive today."

The BBC said that Burrell, in the TV interview, tells the two princes to "grow up." As for their criticism of him, he reportedly says: "I felt immediately that those boys were being manipulated and massaged by the system, by the palace, by the gray men in suits, by those who did exactly the same to their mother.

"We have to grow up and get on with it and the boys are now adults. They're not children any more and their mother will be talked about."