Prince Harry was incredibly close with his mother, and he spoke of his regret over their final phone call days before Princess Diana was killed in Paris back in 1997
Prince Harry heartbreakingly revealed that he will forever regret the final time he spoke to his mother because he was desperate to end their phone call so he could go and play outside.
The young royal was just 12 years old when Princess Diana died in Paris, the 1997 crash which also resulted in the deaths of her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and chauffeur Henri Paul, devastating the family. Harry has since revealed that he asked his driver to speed through the tunnel at 65 MPH for ‘closure’ but one thing he can’t block out is their final conversation.
In the 2007 documentary ‘Diana, Our Mother’, Princes William and Harry sat down to recall some of their memories of their mother and spoke about the last times they saw and spoke to her. What the Duke of Sussex said reduced viewers to tears as he explained how he’ll also carry with him the regret of his determination to get off the phone.
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 to mark the 20th anniversary of her passing, Prince Harry praised his father’s response in the days following the death. Harry said of Prince Charles on ‘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.
More than 25 years on from the Paris crash, he spoke of his biggest regret ( Image: AFP via Getty Images)
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.”
Diana’s biographer Andrew Morton previously spoke to The Mirror’s podcast, Pod Save the Queen, about Prince Harry and how he still involves his late mother in his life. He said: “I think that Diana’s influence has lasted longer than anybody thought because her torchbearers in life, William and Harry, have not forgotten her and have held concerts in her memory. Harry himself says that he never makes a decision without referring it to her in a spiritual sense.
“She marked a turning point in the way the Royal Family behaved and through her behaviour helped to modernise and make more human the Royal Family. So it wasn’t big handbags, white gloves and standoffish. It was more touchy-feely than it had ever been in the past. So she made the Royal Family more relevant to modern times.”
Elsewhere in the 2007 documentary Harry reflected on Diana’s funeral which took place in London on September 6. He said: “My mother had just died and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands watching me while millions more did on television. I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don’t think it would happen today.”
