(CNN) -- Paul Burrell, the former butler for Princess Diana, attacked her family in an interview with a British newspaper published Thursday, calling Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, a "hypocrite," and accusing Diana's mother, Frances Shand Kydd, of making "shocking" late-night telephone calls to her daughter.
Andrew Morton, a biographer of Diana, spoke to CNN anchor Paula Zahn on Thursday about the developments.
ZAHN: Reaction to the butler story is coming in from all corners. Is there any truth to these tales? Andrew Morton has written four books about the Princess of Wales, and for one of them, he was granted unprecedented access to Diana, and Andrew Morton joins me now. Welcome back.
MORTON: Good morning. Nice to see you again.
ZAHN: So when you worked on your book, you spent countless hours with her; you spent the better part of a full year with her. From what you're hearing out of the tabloids and what we heard coming out of the trial of Paul Burrell, what's true?
MORTON: Well, there's a mixture of facts and fantasy, exaggeration and so on.
I mean, when I was interviewing Diana, Paul Burrell was someone that she was thinking of sacking because she didn't really trust him, but obviously, in subsequent years, she became closer to him, and he became quite a close confidant. But to suggest, as he has done, that he was kind of a rock, he was one amongst many.
ZAHN: Do you think he was indeed the courier for Diana of many men that came to the palace, as spilled in all of these tabloids over the last couple of days?
MORTON: These stories are not especially new. I mean, I was writing back in 1993 that Diana was bringing men to Kensington Palace in the trunks of cars, simply to avoid the paparazzi. Remember, she was followed everywhere she went, and if she wanted any kind of private life, she had to go to all kinds of intrigue and subterfuge to keep that life private.
And remember, conversations she had had been broadcast on the air. People had been tapping into her phones. There was an air of paranoia about Kensington Palace.
ZAHN: There may have been an air of paranoia, but as Paul Burrell is also saying, Diana was quite bold (in) the way she went around her business, and he described taking her to a meeting to a doctor she was in love with, completely naked underneath a very expensive fur coat. She took some chances.
MORTON: That is what we call in Britain dressing to impress.
ZAHN: A lot of men would be thrilled by that sight.
MORTON: Well, at that time, she was a single girl looking for a new guy. I think that was a fairly extreme way of doing it. But certainly, Diana's life toward the end was far more out of control in some ways than when she was inside the royal family. She was looking for a new role. She was looking for new love. She was looking to make a new start. And Burrell was around at that time, a very difficult time in her life.
ZAHN: Apparently, we are told what is going to come out in future installments is this rift between the family, the Spencer family, and the royal family, and what came out today in "The Daily Mirror" was talk of this explosive phone call that happened between Diana and her mother, and the way it's described in the paper, Diana was so upset, she called Paul up at the top of the stairs, and he was listening in on the phone conversation. Apparently, it was laced with a lot of four-letter words, and her mother was extremely critical of the fact that she was dating Muslim men. Was that an issue when you were working on the book with her?
MORTON: Diana's relationship with her mother was always quite explosive. In fact, Diana's relationship with all of the Spencers was fairly explosive because the family likes a good row. They're always falling out with each other and falling in with each other. And all of the time I was talking with Diana, she was either best friends with her mother or she wasn't speaking to her mother. So it was a pattern of behavior. That's the way their relationship worked.
It's very sad that the last conversation was in such vociferous terms. And taking it back, remember, the Spencer family didn't really want Diana to marry Prince Charles.
ZAHN: Why?
MORTON: Her grandmother said, you won't like the family, they don't have the same sense of humor that you do. So, in a way, Diana's family weren't so impressed by some of her suitors, whether it be Muslims or Christians.
ZAHN: What is your sense? There is so much confusion about how this information came out. I guess the 30-page interview the police had done with Paul Burrell, (was) leaked to the press, and he sold some of this to a tabloid. Do you think the royal family allowed for this police interrogation thing to be leaked to the press?
MORTON: I think that this whole thing has diminished everybody. It has diminished the queen. It has diminished the butler. It has diminished Diana. It has diminished the Spencers. And in a sense, they -- this was an accident waiting to happen.
Two years ago, I spoke to Burrell's solicitor about this, and we discussed the fact that this was going to end in tears, and it has done. And, in a way, ... there is another trial happening in another month ... of another butler. So what you are going to find is more skeletons in the wall. This is a story that's going to run and run.
ZAHN: Why did it come to trial in the first place? And you know, the timing of the queen remembering her visit with Paul Burrell on the day before Burrell is supposed to testify ...
MORTON: The reason why it came to trial is because of the other trial. And as that has not taken place yet, it would be wrong to go into the details behind it. But, at the same time, the Spencer ... family, they came forward with evidence to the police. All they were doing was cooperating with the police, and in this morning's newspaper, Burrell attacked the Spencer family, quite unjustly, I think. He's calling them hypocrites. He's calling Charles a hypocrite. He's calling Sarah, Diana's sister, a hypocrite. He didn't feel they were so hypocritical when they gave him $75,000 for his loyalty as an ex-gracia payment.
ZAHN: And in closing, there's also the implication in this article today that the Spencer family is cashing in on Diana.
MORTON: The Spencer family ...
ZAHN: They never accepted her in life, and in death, they are making a lot of dough off her.
MORTON: I think Charles Spencer's speech in Westminster Abbey was probably one of the most telling speeches ever made, and it really struck a chord. It summed up Diana. Charles Spencer and Diana had a very loyal, a very intimate relationship. And the Spencer family, we can't understand any family. And the Spencer family is a robust family. They have got a shrine to Diana, and in that sense, they are the ones who are carrying her flame, not Paul Burrell, and not indeed the royal family.
ZAHN: I would agree with you, though, every single player has been diminished by these revelations.
MORTON: It's diminished the royal family. It's diminished the monarchy. It's diminished the legal system, and the fact that we're talking about it on American television, it turns Britain into a joke. And you have to ask yourself if the royal family is there to represent Britain at its best, is it doing its job properly?
ZAHN: That's a good question for a debate, I think.
MORTON: It certainly is.
ZAHN: Thank you for dropping by. I know you're going to be back tomorrow. You happen to be the author of another new book "Nine for Nine: The Pennsylvania Mine Rescue Miracle." And we look forward to having that conversation with you as well.
MORTON: My pleasure.
