Prince Harry Reflects on Losing Princess Diana

While Prince Harry has made peace with living without his late mother, Princess Diana, the royal admits that loss can be very painful—especially while you're actively in the grieving process.

In a new video, Harry spoke to Scotty’s Little Soldiers founder Nikki Scott about the impact that bereavement has on children. For Harry, who became a global ambassador for Scotty's in November after working with the organization since 2017, the cause hits close to home after he lost Diana to a tragic car accident in Paris as a child.

“You convince yourself that the person you’ve lost wants you, or you need to be sad for as long as possible to prove to them that they are missed,” Harry said of losing his mother. “But then there’s this realization of, no, they must want me to be happy.”

When Scott spoke of her charity's foundation aim to assist children of fallen military soldiers by celebrating their parents' lives, Harry gave his perspective on a healthier way to deal with loss. “That’s the hardest thing, especially for kids, I think, which is ‘I don’t want to talk about it because it will make me sad, but once realizing if I do talk about it, and I’m celebrating their life, then, actually, things become easier,’” he said.

While Harry did take time to note that suppressing grief can help people deal with loss “for a period of time,” he noted, “You can’t suppress it forever. It’s not sustainable, and will eat away at you inside. No one wants to be in the position where they are forced to talk about the very thing they don’t want to talk about—especially when every defense mechanism in your mind, nervous system, and everything else is saying, ‘Do not go there.’”

Harry and Prince William lost Diana on August 31, 1997 when they were 12 and 15, respectively—the pair was told of the tragedy the following day by their father King Charles (then Prince Charles) at Balmoral in Scotland, where they were staying with family. Diana's funeral followed promptly a week later on September 6, with Harry and William participating alongside Charles, Prince Philip and Diana's brother, Charles Spencer.

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