This week marked twenty five years since Princess Diana’s tragic death, and in recent years Prince Harry and Prince William have opened up about the impact of losing their mother at such young ages.
In particular the Duke of Sussex, who was just twelve years old when she died, has been candid about how it affected his mental health and during his 2021 documentary, The Me You Can’t See, he spoke about turning to alcohol and drugs as a teenager to cope with the grief.
Diana was killed in a car accident in Paris in 1997, and William and Harry were on holiday with Prince Charles in Balmoral at the time.
In the 2017 documentary, Diana, Our Mother, Harry and William spoke about their memories of the late Princess and recalled the last times they spoke to her.
Harry said: ‘I can’t really, necessarily, remember what I said. But all I do remember is probably, you know, regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was.
‘And if I’d known that was the last time I was going to speak to my mother – the things I would have said to her.’
William then added: ‘I remember just feeling completely numb, disorientated, dizzy. You feel very, very confused.
‘And you keep asking yourself, “Why me?” All the time, “Why? What have I done? Why? Why has this happened to us?”‘
The Princes have also spoken about how they ensure that her memory lives on with their children. Harry revealed that his son, Archie, has a photograph of the Princess in his nursery and that ‘grandma’ was one of his first words, and William’s children also write cards for ‘Granny Diana’ on Mother’s Day.