On Monday, HBO will release a new documentary marking the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death, offering personal insights into the lives of Prince Willam and Prince Harry and the pain they experienced after learning they’d never speak to their mother again.
“I can’t necessarily remember what I said but all I do remember is regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was, Prince Harry said in the film, according to CNN. “If I’d known that that was the last time I was going to speak to my mother, the things I would have said to her.”
“Looking back at it now—it’s incredibly hard. I have to deal with that for the rest of my life: not knowing that it was the last time I’d speak to my mum, how differently that conversation would have panned out if I’d had even the slightest inkling that her life was going to be taken that night.”
Prince William adds that he and his brother had been “running around, minding our own business, playing with our cousins and having a very good time” and were hurrying to say “goodbye, see you later, can I go off?”
“If I’d known what was going to happen I wouldn’t have been quite so blasé about it,” he said. “That phone call sticks in my mind quite heavily.”
The brothers said they opted to open up for the film—called Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy—because the time finally felt right.
“There’s not many days that go by that I don’t think of her. Her 20th anniversary year feels like a good time to...remember, you know, all the good things about her and hopefully provide maybe a different side to her that others haven’t seen before,” Prince William said.
The documentary isn’t just a rumination on regret. The brothers also remember their mother’s propensity for mischief, and joked that she would have made a “nightmare grandmother.”
“She’d love the children to bits, but she’d be an absolute nightmare. She’d come and go and she’d come in probably at bath time, cause an amazing amount of scene, bubbles everywhere, bathwater all over the place and — and then leave,” Harry said.
“Our mother was a total kid, through and through,” he added. “One of her mottos to me [was] ‘You can be as naughty as you want—just don’t get caught.’”
DISCUSSION
Before the internet, women didn’t have a whole lot of exposure to other women who publicly aired their unhappiness in their marriages and relationships. At a certain point, Princess Diana revealed it all, including her misery with Charles and eating disorders. That is not a small thing and she should be given credit. She took a lot of shit for it but owned it.