Princess Diana’s brother Charles has become engaged to a glamorous Canadian divorcee following yet another whirlwind romance. Earl Spencer, 46, is thought to have dated Karen Gordon, 38, for only four months before telling his children that he plans to make her his third wife.
Friends and family were said to be ‘shell-shocked’. It was only in September that he broke off his engagement to widowed aristocrat Bianca, Lady Eliot, after proposing in March. Yesterday his spokesman released a statement announcing that ‘Canadian philanthropist’ and mother-of-two Mrs Gordon will marry the earl ‘privately’ at his Althorp seat in Northamptonshire on June 18
Insiders have told the Mail that Charles, the 9th Earl Spencer with an estimated £120million fortune, plans to spend more time in the US after the ceremony. 'This is bombshell news for everyone. He only revealed what was happening in the past couple of days after proposing and people are shell-shocked'
The timing of the announcement means that former model Mrs Gordon, who lives in Los Angeles, is certain to be invited to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in April, where the earl’s son Louis, 16, will be a groomsman.
An official portrait of the couple released yesterday shows them wearing matching blue flannel shirts. The brunette, ex-wife of Hollywood film producer Mark Gordon, leans affectionately against her solemn and greying fiancé.
Mrs Gordon, the daughter of a park ranger, was born Karen Villeneuve in Edmonton, Canada. She dropped out of college to become a catalogue model, before meeting Mark Gordon while working as a receptionist at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto aged 21. They married three years later in 1997 and hit the jackpot the following year when Gordon produced Saving Private Ryan. He went on to create the TV hospital drama Grey’s Anatomy. The pair had two daughters – now aged 12 and eight – but Gordon filed for divorce in 2003.
Friends and family were said to be ‘shell-shocked’. It was only in September that he broke off his engagement to widowed aristocrat Bianca, Lady Eliot, after proposing in March. Yesterday his spokesman released a statement announcing that ‘Canadian philanthropist’ and mother-of-two Mrs Gordon will marry the earl ‘privately’ at his Althorp seat in Northamptonshire on June 18
Insiders have told the Mail that Charles, the 9th Earl Spencer with an estimated £120million fortune, plans to spend more time in the US after the ceremony. 'This is bombshell news for everyone. He only revealed what was happening in the past couple of days after proposing and people are shell-shocked'
The timing of the announcement means that former model Mrs Gordon, who lives in Los Angeles, is certain to be invited to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in April, where the earl’s son Louis, 16, will be a groomsman.
An official portrait of the couple released yesterday shows them wearing matching blue flannel shirts. The brunette, ex-wife of Hollywood film producer Mark Gordon, leans affectionately against her solemn and greying fiancé.
Mrs Gordon, the daughter of a park ranger, was born Karen Villeneuve in Edmonton, Canada. She dropped out of college to become a catalogue model, before meeting Mark Gordon while working as a receptionist at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto aged 21. They married three years later in 1997 and hit the jackpot the following year when Gordon produced Saving Private Ryan. He went on to create the TV hospital drama Grey’s Anatomy. The pair had two daughters – now aged 12 and eight – but Gordon filed for divorce in 2003.
