Princess Diana’s brother shares insight into her frosty two-word nickname she called the Queen

Princess Diana had a private nickname for Queen Elizabeth II, and according to her brother, she used it constantly.

Charles Spencer, in his new memoir Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, released in September 2026, writes that Diana referred to her mother-in-law simply as 'the boss.'

The comment came up as Spencer recalled the fallout from Diana's decision to wear a chignon, a hairstyle more associated with old Hollywood glamour than the royal family, to the 1984 State Opening of Parliament.

The look sparked a media frenzy, and the Queen was reportedly displeased.

Per InStyle, Spencer wrote: "Diana was told off, and she, ever respectful of 'the boss,' as she called the queen, from that point on, always wore her hair more simply at events that they both attended."

It wasn't a one-time slip. Letters and biographies suggest Diana used the nickname for years, right up until her death in 1997.

Diana referred to Queen Elizabeth II as 'the boss' in both private conversation and written correspondence. (Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)

What did Princess Diana call the Queen?

Diana's use of 'the boss' wasn't confined to her brother's recollections.

In an October 1995 letter to Roger Bramble, a friend of King Charles III, Diana used the exact same phrase while worrying she'd delayed him for a meeting with the monarch.

As reported by the Express, she wrote: "I just hope your arrival at Westminster Abbey was before the Boss (The Queen) and if not, I expect to have been mentioned in the excuses!"

The letter, sent two years before Diana's death, indicates the nickname had become something of a running joke between her and those close to her, a shorthand for the Queen's authority within both the family and the institution.

Diana referred to Queen Elizabeth II as "the boss" in both private conversation and written correspondence. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)

Why was Princess Diana's relationship with the Queen so complicated?

Long before the nickname stuck, Diana's dynamic with her mother-in-law was defined by intimidation rather than intimacy.

Author Andrew Morton, in his 1992 biography Diana: Her True Story: In Her Own Words, wrote, according to the Mirror, that "Diana was quite simply terrified of her mother-in-law" in the early years of her marriage.

That relationship shifted again as Charles' affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, now Queen Camilla, intensified and Diana's marriage collapsed. Diana reportedly turned to Elizabeth for guidance and was met with silence.

In 1993 tapes played during the 2017 documentary Diana: In Her Own Words, Diana recalled telling the Queen, "I don't know what I should do," only for Elizabeth to reply, "I don't know what you should do."

Diana added, as reported by The Guardian: "And that was it. That was 'help.'"

The strain between them appears to have persisted until the very end. Spencer's memoir claims, per DW, that upon learning of Diana's fatal car crash in 1997, the Queen's first reaction was to ask, 'What is she up to now?'

Together, the accounts paint a picture of a relationship shaped as much by institutional distance as by family ties, one where a two-word nickname said more than either woman ever did publicly.