Harry Hill is criticised for cracking jokes in 'bad taste' as he posts photo with a Princess Diana waxwork

Harry Hill has come under fire for making jokes about Princess Diana. 

The 61-year-old comedian, real name Matthew Keith Hall, took to Instagram on Sunday to share an image showing him posing next to a waxwork of the late royal.

Alongside the image, he wrote: 'I will never talk of our time together... sorry but that's special time,' in a post that comes amid a media storm surrounding the Princess, whose brother Earl Spencer is set to release a tell-all book. 

The comments section on Harry's post was soon flooded with criticism of his jokes about Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. 

Followers wrote: 'Not sure this is in particularly good taste mate… too soon isn’t it. Not even too soon. Just poor judgement... 

'NOT FUNNY AT ALL GIVEN THE CURRENT SITUATION... Bit of a d**k comment mate just saying... bad taste... You were never funny and this proves you're still not... Too soon Harry, too soon'. 

Harry's post comes after it was alleged that the Royal Family is reeling from a string of explosive claims in the memoir – entitled Swan Song: Diana, My Sister – after extracts were exclusively published by the Mail last week.

Earl Spencer has made an incendiary claim that – days after Diana's 1997 death – the then Prince Charles told him: 'Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough', which  has provoked a highly unusual response from the Palace.

In a statement, a Palace spokesman last week questioned the veracity of Earl Spencer's account and said that fraternal grief can 'cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory'.

Earl Spencer has claimed he had an explosive row with Charles after suggesting that he was uncomfortable with Harry and William, then aged 15 and 12, walking behind their mother's coffin in the funeral procession, which led to Charles's alleged comment and the then Prince attacking the Spencer family's sense of duty.

The earl told the BBC on Sunday that evidence of his argument with Charles – and his reaction – was actually contained within his famous eulogy at Diana's funeral.

As well as his notorious remarks that Diana's 'blood family' would ensure her sons were protected, his eulogy also included the line: 'Above all, we give thanks for the life of a woman I'm so proud to be able to call my sister: the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana, whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds.'

Earl Spencer said of his explosive row with the future king on the eve of the funeral: 'You can see evidence of that conversation in the final eulogy.

'I really stress Diana's sense of duty - duty comes across very clearly in the eulogy, and then it culminates in something which I think really underlines the truth of my assertion here.

'If you get to the final bit of my eulogy, it is that her fantastic qualities "will never be extinguished from our minds." It was a direct rebuttal of "we'll forget her soon enough."'

Harry previously caused controversy in 2016, when a backdated episode of his show Harry Hill's TV Burp was aired and showed 'transphobic' scenes. 

Last year he admitted TV Burp, which featured the star reflecting on the week's TV and current affairs, would be cancelled if the show was made today. 

Speaking about the lack of risk in comedy nowadays, he said: 'We could easily have been cancelled after the first series and we would be now.'