Everything William and Harry said about Princess Diana’s death as The Crown chronicles her final moments

The first part of the sixth and final season of “The Crown” is here and deals with the death of Princess Diana.

The 36-year-old royal died in a car accident in Paris on August 31, 1997 after being followed by paparazzi.

Their sons, Prince William, now 41, and Prince Harry, 39, were just 15 and 12 years old respectively at the time.

Images of the brothers walking behind their mother’s coffin are etched in most of our memories – but what have William and Harry said about their mother’s death since then?

From their thoughts as they walked behind Diana’s coffin to their reaction to her death, here’s everything the couple said.

Walking behind Diana’s coffin

“My mother had just died and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions of others watched on television,” Prince Harry told Newsweek in 2017. “I don’t think you should ask a child to do that, under any circumstances. I don’t think that would happen today.”

Harry continued to speak about the impact of this moment on his mental health, telling Oprah Winfrey in 2021: “When my mother was taken from me at the age of 12, just before my 13th birthday, I did not want (that) life. Sharing the grief of my mother’s death with the world…

“It was like I was outside of my body and just going along and doing what was expected of me, showing only a tenth of the emotions that everyone else was showing.”

Prince William told the BBC that the decision for him and Harry to walk behind the coffin was made jointly by the entire family.

“This was not an easy decision, but a kind of collective family decision. There is a balance between duty and family and that is exactly what we had to do,” he said.

“(I had to) choose between playing Prince William and having a duty to do my part, and just being William, who just wanted to go to his room and cry because he had lost his mother.”

Harry’s last phone call with Diana

In the 2017 HBO documentary “Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy,” Harry said he last spoke to his mother during one of their nightly phone calls, which became a regular occurrence after she and King Charles III separated.

“I can’t really remember what I said,” Harry recalled. “But I probably just know that I regretted for the rest of my life how short the phone call was. And if I’d known that was the last time I’d speak to my mother, what would I have said to her? I just know that I regretted for the rest of my life how short the phone call was.”

The moment they learned that Diana had died

“There’s nothing like it in the world,” William said in the HBO documentary. “There really isn’t. It’s like an earthquake just went through the house and through your life and everything. Your mind is completely split. And it took me a while to really understand that.”

Prince Harry later wrote in his 2023 memoir, Spare, of the moment his father told him of Diana’s death: “Pa didn’t hug me. He wasn’t particularly good at showing emotion under normal circumstances. But his hand fell on my knee one more time and he said, ‘It’s going to be OK.’ But nothing was OK for a long time after that.”

A message from beyond

In “Spare,” Harry wrote about seeking the help of a woman with “powers” ​​to ease the grief over Diana’s death.

He says the medium told him: “You are living the life she couldn’t live. You are living the life she wanted for you.”

On the lack of understanding for the great grief of the public

“It was very, very strange after her death, you know, this kind of love and emotion from so many people who never knew her,” Harry said in the HBO documentary. “…And I thought to myself, how can it be that so many people who never knew this woman, my mother, can cry and show more emotion than I actually feel?”

Harry has only cried twice since Diana’s death

Diana was buried in the middle of an island on her family’s Althorpe Estate, where her funeral also took place.

In the HBO documentary, Harry revealed: “The first time I cried was at the funeral on the island… and since then only maybe once. So, you know, there’s still a lot of grief that needs to be released.”

About the grieving process

“You have to take it slowly, you have to try to rebuild your life and understand what happened. And I kept telling myself that my mother doesn’t want me to be upset,” the Prince of Wales said in the 2017 documentary.

“She didn’t want me to be depressed. She didn’t want me to be like that. I also kept myself busy – which is sometimes good and sometimes bad – but it helps you get through the initial shock.”

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Harry was convinced that Diana had faked her death

In “Spare,” Harry wrote that during his grieving period, he convinced himself that his mother had faked her death and was living in the Swiss Alps.

“She was very unhappy,” he wrote, telling himself. “She was being harassed, lied to, and had lies made about her. So she faked this accident to keep them away from her.”

The impact of Diana’s death on Harry’s work and private life

In an interview with the Telegraph in 2017, Harry detailed the long-term impact his mother’s death had on his life.

“I can say with certainty that the loss of my mother at the age of twelve and the resulting isolation of all my emotions over the last twenty years has seriously affected not only my personal life but also my work,” he explained.

“I’ve probably been close to a complete breakdown several times, with all kinds of grief and lies and misunderstandings and everything else coming at you from all sides.”

Diana’s presence is “constant”

In 2022, Harry told the TODAY show that he had felt his mother’s presence more strongly since the birth of his two children, Archie, 4, and Lilibet, 2.

“For me (her presence) is constant,” Harry said. “It’s been like that for the last two years – more than ever.”

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