Prince Harry has been moved to tears as he spoke about the grief of losing his mother Princess Diana and the coping mechanisims he found to manage his pain, in an emotional new interview with a charity.
The Duke of Sussex, 39, in May spoke about his mourning during a sit-down interview with Nikki Scott, founder of charity Scotty’s Little Soldiers for bereaved military children who have lost a parent to war.
Harry, who is the charity’s global ambassador, choked back tears as he told Nikki he was only 12-years-old when his own mother Princess Diana died in a car crash while fleeing the paparazzi on August 31, 1997, aged 36.
Prince Harry has been moved to tears as he spoke about the grief of losing his mother Princess Diana and the coping mechanisms he found to manage his pain. Picture: Scotty’s TV/YouTube
“It’s so easy as a kid to think or convince yourself the reason, I would know, I was twelve…the person you’ve lost wants you or you need to be sad for as long as possible to prove to them that they’re missed,” he said.
“That’s the hardest thing especially for kids, I think, which is, I don’t want to talk about it because it’s going to make me sad.
“Especially when every defence mechanism in your mind, nervous system and everything else is saying ‘do not go there.”
It was then the Duke revealed he had stumbled upon the realisation: “No… they must want me to be happy.”
Harry’s insight comes from personal circumstances, as he learned suppressing grief was “in fact not” the best form of coping with loss.
“It can be for a period of time,” he went on to say.
“But…if you supress this for too long, you can’t suppress it forever it’s not sustainable and it will east away at you inside.
“Once realising that if I do talk about it and I’m celebrating their life then actually things become easier.”
Harry choked back tears as he told Nikki he was only twelve years old when his own mother Princess Diana on August 31, 1997, died in a car crash. Picture: Scotty’s TV/Youtube
In the interview, Harry was visibly moved by Nikki emotionally revealing her husband, Lee, in 2009 was killed in Afghanistan while serving with the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment.
Nikki, like Harry, has two young children named Brooke and Kai who were respectively 7 months and 5 years when she had to tell them their father was dead.
The Duke said Nikki had done an “amazing job” in her professional and in her “mum role” as the ex-working royal thanked her for supporting bereaved military children.
“The way that you’ve navigated this is extraordinary and no one, there’s so many people out there inside the military community and outside you don’t know, and quite rightly understandably, don’t know how to manage these situations,” he said.
“So, wherever you have a chance to be able to share your story it is going to help them.”
SKYNEWS.COM.AU03:07
Prince Harry was ‘sad’ to give up military accolades
Writer and broadcaster Esther Krakue says Prince Harry has been vocal about how sad he was to give up his military accolades after leaving the Royal Family.
It comes as Harry revealed in his shock memoir Spare he had killed 25 people while serving in Afghanistan during his 10-year stint in the army to to 2015.
Writing about his two tours of duty from from 2007 to 2008 and then again from 2012 to 2013, he said: “So my number: twenty-five. It was not something that filled me with satisfaction, but I was not ashamed either.
“Naturally, I would have preferred not to have that figure on my military resume, or in my head, but I would also have preferred to live in a world without the Taliban, a world without war.”
Harry rose to the rank of Apache helicopter commander and held several honorary military titles awarded to him by his late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II including Commodore-in-Chief of Small Ships and Diving, Honorary Air Commandant of RAF Honington and Captain General of the Royal Marines.
He was formally stripped of all three titles in February 2021, about one year after Harry and his wife Meghan Markle “stepped back” from royal duties and moved to California.
