Countess Spencer has announced her next moves after splitting from Princess Diana’s brother, and she will be taking the ‘orphaned’ lambs with her.
Karen Gordon became Charles Spencer’s third wife in 2011 and gave birth to his seventh child, Lady Charlotte, the following year.
They married within the grounds of Althorp, where the Earl’s older sister Princess Diana is buried.
The couple had met the previous year on a blind date at a restaurant in Los Angeles.
It is understood their marriage broke down amid the strain of Earl Spencer writing his harrowing memoir detailing the physical and sexual abuse he suffered at boarding school, The Mail On Sunday reported.
The couple announced their pending divorce to staff at Althorp, the Spencer family estate in Northamptonshire, in April.
Following the split, the Countess said she is ‘looking forward to reconnecting’ with followers on social media.
‘I’m currently still at Althorp,’ said the Countess, 52. ‘I look forward to closing this chapter out with you all and launching the next. I will be sharing an update on my projects and reflecting on all the wonderful things I have learned during my time here on this beautiful estate.’
The Canadian-born Countess who, as Karen Villeneuve, was first married to Hollywood producer Mark Gordon whose credits include Saving Private Ryan and Death On The Nile, and with whom she had two daughters, promises what she calls ‘a deeper dive’ for ‘those of you who enjoy more detail’.
But she added: ‘I don’t have access to my newsletter mailing list at present, so if you would like to receive my updates, I am going to need you to sign up again on my new site. So sorry! The site will be launching this fall. Stay tuned.’
She also said that ‘orphaned lambs’ Lucky and Minty will ‘be coming with me’.
Adding: ‘Many of you have been asking what we found when we did the excavation. You won’t believe it!’ she concludes. ‘Can’t wait to share.’
Earl Spencer, 60, who earlier this year dramatically disclosed that he’d been subjected to sexual abuse while at his prep school, Maidwell Hall, is now going out with Norwegian archaeologist Cat Jarman, co-presenter of his history podcast.
Dr Jarman, 42, who is separated from her husband, has also been helping Lord Spencer unearth a Roman villa at Althorp.
She has appeared on BBC Two’s Digging for Britain and was last month awarded ‘Nordic Person of the Year’ by the Confederation of Scandinavian Societies.
Karen’s first husband was millionaire Hollywood producer Mark Gordon, known for his work on Saving Private Ryan and The Day After Tomorrow, who she met while working on the front desk of the Four Seasons in Toronto in 1994.
The couple married three years later but split in 2003 and Karen reportedly received a $1.3 million settlement. She was later linked to billionaire George Soros.
Charles Spencer told the MoS that the five years of work on his memoir has deeply affected him and led to him undergoing residential treatment for trauma late last year.
He is understood to have been particularly traumatised by his discovery of his 1976 schoolboy diary, in which the assistant matron, who he alleges sexually abused him, had written a long-forgotten message.
The diary was discovered on the high shelf of a room at Althorp that was being refurbished after he completed the main body of his book.
Earl Spencer wrote he was ‘rocked’ by the discovery and described how the woman, who The Mail on Sunday identified as 67-year-old grandmother Sally Jane Carr, has simply written ‘Me’ along with her address and telephone number.
‘There is something about the word, ‘Me’, that strikes me now as not only wildly inappropriate, but intensely intimate – and, of course, slyly anonymous.’
The Earl’s memoir also revealed the trauma of his mother leaving him and Diana when he was three-years-old and how being brought up by a succession of nannies also impacted him.