Charles Spencer’s new partner has revealed that she has multiple sclerosis. But she’s not happy about how people found out about it. According to The Independent, Dr. Cat Jarman is taking legal action against Charles Spencer‘s estranged wife Karen Spencer. She alleges that Countess Spencer shared “intimate secrets” about her with “a string of people” without her permission.
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Charles, who is Princess Diana's brother, didn't realize that his new partner had MS.
Given that Dr. Cat Jarman was “devastated” when she was diagnosed with MS, she tried to hide the diagnosis from people, including her new partner, Earl Spencer. “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,” the Norwegian archaeologist told the Daily Mail.
Per the publication, Cat alleges that when Countess Spencer learned that Charles’ new girlfriend had MS, she told him about it. According to Cat, Countess Spencer “went to Charles and said: ‘You do know she has MS, don’t you?'”
Countess Spencer allegedly shared the private diagnosis with other people as well.
Cat alleges that Karen went on to tell “a string of people” about the diagnosis, which caused her “distress, upset and embarrassment.” After learning that people knew about her MS diagnosis, Cat felt “utterly sick.”
“I went into a panic, particularly over the implications for my career,” she told the Daily Mail. “I understand that she was hurting, but why would you share private medical information like that, without consent, especially when you knew it was private — and secret.”
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Charles Spencer was supportive.
While it might be a bit strange to learn about your current partner’s diagnosis from your estranged wife, Charles was empathetic. According to Cat, he could also understand why she chose to keep it from him at first.
“He has been incredible,” Cat told the publication. “He completely understood why I hadn’t felt able to tell him at that stage.” She added that he understood the diagnosis was “very personal.”
Cat was diagnosed with MS eight years ago.
Sharing her diagnosis with the public for the first time, Cat told the Daily Mail, “I woke one morning with crippling pins and needles, shooting pains in my spine, as if I was being Tasered. I completely lost the power of my right hand — I couldn’t even hold a pen. My body simply stopped working. It took nine months to be able to use my hand again. I’m now on strong medication, and everything is kept at bay, but the problem with MS is that you live not knowing if you are going to have a relapse.”
Reflecting on her decision to keep her diagnosis a secret, Cat said, “I thought I would be discriminated against because of it, because it is a disability. I thought it would affect my career, destroy my livelihood, affect the way people regarded me. I did not want to be defined by it, or my career limited by it.”
Charles and Cat confirmed their relationship in October.
Though the couple met in 2021, they were friends first. Several months after Charles and Karen announced their divorce, Charles confirmed that he and Cat had started dating. During an interview with the Daily Mail, Charles, 60, said that when he and Cat, 42, started working on The Rabbit Hole Detectives podcast in 2023, romance didn’t feel like a possibility.
“The thing is, I am 18 years older than Cat and so there wasn’t even the possibility,” he said. “I’ve never been with a much younger person. I wasn’t even thinking romance. I was at the tail end of a marriage. It just wasn’t a possibility.”
Later, though, their relationship evolved into a romantic one. “We were fascinated by the same things. And she made me laugh. Laughter was key,” Charles told the publication.
