Prince Harry Reveals How He Found Out About His Mother Princess Diana’s Death | “I Couldn’t Believe It”
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Prince Harry Reveals How He Found Out About His Mother Princess Diana’s Death | “I Couldn’t Believe It”
"Never shed a single tear at that point. I was in shock, you know?" the Duke of Sussex shared in a new interview.
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Hulton Archive | Ian Gavan
ByTavishi
January 11, 2023
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Prince Harry was 12 when his mother, Princess Diana, was killed in a fatal car crash in Paris as the paparazzi were chasing her car. The infamous incident left an indelible mark on the Duke of Sussex who recalls how mourning for his mother’s passing was a tumultuous event for him to experience as a 12-year-old boy.
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It was August 1997 and he was at Balmoral Castle in Scotland with other members of the royal family, Harry shares in his memoir Spare. In an interview with Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes, the father-of-two revealed how he came to know about the passing of his mother and participated in the funeral with a dilemma within, reports CBS News.
Image Source: Getty Images | Hulton Archive
Describing what unfolded after his mother’s death, Harry recalled the moment his father, Prince Charles, came up to him. He woke him up and informed him about the passing away of his beloved mother, he said.
Cooper asked the Duke of Sussex: "In the book, you write, 'He says, 'They tried, darling boy. I'm afraid she didn't make it.' These phrases remain in my mind like darts on a board,' you say. Did you cry?"
Replying to the journalist's question, Harry said, "No. No. Never shed a single tear at that point. I was in shock, you know? Twelve years old. Sort of— 7, 7:30 in the morning, early. Your father comes in, sits on your bed, puts his hand on your knee, and tells you, 'There's been an accident.' I couldn't believe it."
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Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Dominic Lipinski
The young boy found it difficult to regulate his emotions as he came across several mourners back then and couldn’t express the grief he felt. In the exclusive interview, Cooper asked the 38-year-old about how he's written in his memoir that his father didn’t hug him but reassured him by placing a hand on his knees saying it's going to be alright. Harry says in the book that he felt nothing right after that.
Meanwhile, the young prince held on to the idea that his mother may have survived the accident and may be hiding from the world.
Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Ted Bath
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Recalling the day before his mother's funeral times outside Kensington Palace he says, "I think it's bizarre because I see William and me smiling. I remember the guilt that I felt."
Harry added that he didn’t shed a tear that day while "there was a lot of tears. I talk about how wet people's hands were. And I couldn't understand it at first. Their hands were wet from wiping their own tears away." The Prince confessed that it took him years to accept his mother was no more. The funeral was watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people around the world when the news of Princess Diana’s death broke out.
