Prince Harry Praises King Charles for His Support During a Difficult Time
Prince Harry has emotionally shared his lasting regret over the final conversation with his mother and expressed gratitude for his father King Charles's support during that challenging period.
At just 12 years old, Harry faced the devastating loss of Princess Diana in the 1997 car crash in Paris, which also claimed the lives of her partner, Dodi Fayed, and their chauffeur, Henri Paul.
Harry has disclosed that he once asked his driver to speed through the tunnel at 65 MPH in search of 'closure,' but one memory he cannot erase is their last conversation.
In the 2007 documentary Diana, Our Mother, Princes William and Harry shared memories of their mother, discussing the final moments they spent with her. Harry's emotional reflection on his regret for ending their last phone call left viewers in tears.
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 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?’”
In a separate documentary in 2007, marking the 20th anniversary of her passing, Prince Harry praised his father's response in the days following her death.
Harry said of Prince Charles in Diana, 7 Days: “One of the hardest things for a parent to have to do is to tell your children that your other parent has died. How you deal with that? I don’t know. But you know, he was there for us.
“He was the one out of two left, and he tried to do his best and to make sure that we were protected and looked after. But you know, he was going through the same grieving process as well.”
The 39-year-old previously opened up about the struggles he faced after his mother's death when he co-created the mental health documentary series The Me You Can’t See with Oprah Winfrey for Apple TV.
The series saw Harry tell Oprah that the trauma of the loss caused him to suffer anxiety and severe panic attacks from ages 28 to 32.
Speaking to the camera, The Duke of Sussex revealed that the pain of his mother’s death led him to use alcohol and drugs to “mask” his emotions and to “feel less like I was feeling.” "I was just all over the place mentally," he shared.
