Dr Cat Jarman: Earl’s Spencer’s new Viking archaeologist partner who won Nordic person of the year award

Earl Spencer has confirmed he is in a new relationship with the “brilliant archaeologist” and Nordic Person of the Year, Dr Cat Jarman.

The brother of the late Princess Diana revealed he and Professor Jarman, who is also the co-host of a podcast he produces, are now together months after he announced his divorce from his third wife, Karen.

Spencer, the 60-year-old aristocrat, met the Viking archeology specialist on his own family estate in 2021, as she searched for the remains of an ancient Roman villa for a Channel 4 documentary.

Though she is yet to find the ancient village, the pair quickly discovered that they dug eachother, and they have now gone public with the relationship.

“Cat Jarman, who is my partner now actually. She’s a brilliant archaeologist,” Earl Spencer told ITV’s Good Morning Britain. “I met her because we both had the same publisher, but secondly – I know this sounds rather bizarre – but she came to dig up a Roman villa on some land I’ve got.”

After getting to know eachother over the course of the dig, the pair began a history podcast with Rev Richard Coles last year called The Rabbit Hole Detectives. Then trio have now also written a trivia book.

Speaking about how the podcast came about, Spencer said: “Richard, Cat and I would end up together, and Richard had been recently bereaved so was semi living with me and the three of us would just talk and talk and talk. Cat said ‘Let’s do a podcast’, and out of the podcast came the book.”

Professor Jarman is an accomplished archeologist and was named the Nordic Person of the Year in May. The prize, established in 1994, recognises the great achievements of an individual or group related to one of the Nordic countries.

The 42-year-old was born in Norway but went to an English boarding school at aged 15 and later completed a doctorate in archaeology of the Viking Age at the University of Bristol.

As a strong authority in her field, she has appeared on BBC 2’s Digging Up Britain and is also the editor of British Archaeology magazine.

She has published two books, River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads and The Bone Chests: Unlocking the Secrets of the Anglo-Saxons.

Earlier this week, The Telegraph reported that Jarman has lodged a legal claim against Earl Spencer’s former wife for

Spencer announced his divorce from the Canadian ‘social entrepreneur’ in June after 13 years of marriage. He has hired the same renowned divorce lawyer who King Charles once used to separate from his sister, Princess Diana.

The couple share a 12-year-old daughter Charlotte Diana, while Spencer has four children with his first wife, Victoria Lockwood, and two children with his second wife, Caroline Freud.