Earl Spencer to divorce third wife

Princess Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, has announced he and his wife, Karen Gordon, are divorcing after 13 years of marriage.

The pair reportedly announced their split to the staff at Althorp estate where Diana, who died in a car crash in August 1997, is buried.

"It is immensely sad," the 9th Earl Spencer, 60, told the Daily Mail.

"I just want to devote myself to all my children, and to my grandchildren, and I wish Karen every happiness in the future."

Spencer and Gordon, a Canadian philanthropist, met on a blind date at a restaurant in Los Angeles in 2010. They got married in June 2011 on the Althorp estate.

The exes share a 12-year-old daughter named Charlotte Diana.

Spencer also has four children from his previous marriage to his first wife, Victoria Lockwood, and two children with his second wife, Caroline Freud.

The Daily Mail claimed Spencer and Karen's relationship fell apart as he was writing his memoir in which he details losing his virginity to a sex worker at age 12 and the traumatic physical and sexual abuse he suffered as a child in boarding school.

The outlet reports he also claimed that his five years of writing his upcoming memoir, "A Very Private School," greatly affected him and pushed him to seek residential trauma treatment last year.

In a March interview with People, Spencer opened up about how "supportive" Karen had been throughout his healing journey as he recalled the traumatic details of his childhood.

"I think it was very challenging for her to have a husband going through what was essentially four and a half years of the most profound therapy with very difficult undertones to it. And she supported the idea of me doing it," he said.