Prince Harry ‘did not want to share his grief with the world’ following Princess Diana’s death

Prince Harry has revealed he didn’t understand the public outpouring of emotion following Princess Diana’s death and that he didn’t want to share his grief with the world.    

Speaking on The Me You Can’t See, his new mental health series with Oprah Winfrey, The Duke of Sussex added that he’s ‘haunted’ by the sound of horses hooves clacking down The Mall at the Princess of Wales’ funeral, and that he was ‘outside of his body’ while following his mother’s coffin. 

‘When my mum was taken away from me at the age of 12, just before my 13th birthday, I didn’t want the [royal] life. Sharing the grief of my mother’s death with the world,’ he said. 

‘For me, the thing I remember the most was the sound of the horses’ hooves going along the pavement. Along the Mall, the red brick road. By this point I was, both of us were in shock. It was like I was outside of my body and just walking along doing what was expected of me.

‘Showing one tenth of the emotion that everybody else was showing. I thought, “This is my mum. You never even met her”.’

‘I always wanted to be normal as opposed to Prince Harry. Just being Harry. It was a puzzling life. 

‘But unfortunately, when I think about my mum the first thing that comes to mind is always the same one over and over again,’ he explained as footage of Diana taking Harry to school flashed on the screen.

The prince has previously spoken of the emotional turmoil he faced after his mother was killed in a Paris car crash in 1997, saying he spent nearly two decades ‘not thinking’ about her death before eventually getting help after a period of ‘total chaos’. 

He has previously discussed his mother’s funeral, saying that it was ‘an awful decision to make him at Prince William walk behind the carriage.

‘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 more did on television. 

 ‘I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don’t think it would happen today,’ he told Angela Levin in 2017.

Int the new interview Harry also revealed he’s struggled with ‘being too young to help his mother,’ and  that she had ‘no protection’.

‘Strapped in the car, seatbelt across with my brother in the car as well and my mother driving being chased by three, four, five mopeds with paparazzi on and then she was always unable to drive because of tears. There was no protection.

‘One of the feelings that comes up with me always is the helplessness. Being too young. Being a guy but too young to be able to help a woman, in this case your mother. And that happened every single day.’

‘Family members have said, “Just play the game and your life will be easier,” but I’ve got a hell of a lot of my mum in me. I feel as though I’m outside of the system, but I’m still stuck there. The only way to free yourself and break out is to tell the truth.’

It comes as the royal today dropped another extraordinary ‘truth bomb’ accusing The Firm of ‘total silence’ and ‘total neglect’ when Meghan was suicidal, claiming his father Prince Charles made him ‘suffer’ as a child and insisting he would not be ‘bullied into silence’ when he alleged ‘The Firm’ smeared them. 

He added that he and his wife felt abandoned by his relatives and this was one of their ‘biggest reasons’ for leaving for California last year.

In yet another full-frontal attack on the royals he said: ‘Certainly now I will never be bullied into silence’, adding: ‘I thought my family would help, but every single ask, request, warning, whatever it is, just got met with total silence, total neglect. 

‘We spent four years trying to make it work. We did everything that we possibly could to stay there and carry on doing the role and doing the job. But Meghan was struggling.’

He said: ‘My father used to say to me when I was younger, he used to say to both William and I, ‘Well, it was like that for me so it’s going to be like that for you,’ Harry says, ‘That doesn’t make sense. Just because you suffered, that doesn’t mean your kids have to suffer. In fact, quite the opposite. If you suffered, do everything you can to make sure that whatever negative experiences you had, you can make it right for your kids.’

‘Isn’t this all about breaking the cycle?’ he asked, rhetorically. ‘Isn’t this all about making sure that history doesn’t repeat itself.’

 In the candid interviews, the prince discusses his failure to process the grief from the death of his mother; the helplessness he felt to protect her; his dependence on drugs and alcohol to numb the pain; his anxiety and sense of being trapped in the palace; his family’s refusal to help when Megan felt suicidal and how therapy helped him ‘break the cycle.’

‘For me, therapy has equipped me to be able to take on anything,’ he said.

The stand-out feature of the show comes as a 13-year-old Harry is seen watching his mother’s coffin – that of Diana, Princess of Wales – passing him during her funeral in London in 1997.

Prince Charles can be seen speaking to his heartbroken son as a female voiceover says over dramatic music: ‘Treating people with dignity is the first act’.

Harry tells Oprah: ‘To make that decision to receive help is not a sign of weakness. In today’s world more than ever, it is a sign of strength.’

It also features interviews with others discussing their struggles with mental health, including tearful interviews with singer Lady Gaga, actress Glenn Close and US talk show queen Oprah herself as well as a feature on a Syrian refugee named Fawzi, described as a hero on the program.

Along with Winfrey, the Duke of Sussex is an executive producer of ‘The Me You Can’t See’, which premiered on Apple TV+ on Thursday.

He says his family tried to prevent him and Megan from leaving when she claims she was suicidal and admits to drinking and doing drugs in his 30s.

‘Eventually when I made that decision for my family, I was still told, ‘You can’t do this,’ Harry recounted to Oprah. ‘And it’s like, ‘Well how bad does it have to get until I am allowed to do this?’ She [Markle] was going to end her life. It shouldn’t have to get to that.’

When asked if he has any regrets, he says it is not taking a stand earlier in his relationship with Markle.

‘It was like that for me so it’s going to be like that for you’: Harry criticizes his father Charles for continuing the cycle of generational suffering 

In the third episode of the series, Harry talks about how his family would not discuss their feelings, leading to more ‘generational suffering.’

‘My father used to say to me when I was younger, he used to say to both William and I, ‘Well, it was like that for me so it’s going to be like that for you,’ Harry says, ‘That doesn’t make sense. Just because you suffered, that doesn’t mean your kids have to suffer. In fact, quite the opposite. If you suffered, do everything you can to make sure that whatever negative experiences you had, you can make it right for your kids.’

‘Isn’t this all about breaking the cycle?’ he asked, rhetorically. ‘Isn’t this all about making sure that history doesn’t repeat itself.’

He said in an interview with Dax Shephard before the series aired he doesn’t blame anyone, ‘but certainly when it comes to parenting, if I’ve experienced some form of pain or suffering because of the pain or suffering that perhaps my father or my parents had suffered, I’m going to make sure I break that cycle so that I don’t pass it on, basically.

‘It’s a lot of genetic pain and suffering that gets passed on anyway so we as parents should be doing the most we can to try and say ‘you know what, that happened to me, I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen to you’.’

He added: ‘I never saw it, I never knew about it, and then suddenly I started to piece it together and go ‘OK, so this is where he went to school, this is what happened, I know this about his life, I also know that is connected to his parents so that means he’s treated me the way he was treated, so how can I change that for my own kids’.

‘And here I am, I moved my whole family to the US, that wasn’t the plan but sometimes you’ve got make decisions and put your family first and put your mental health first.’    

Prince Harry suffered panic attacks and binged on drugs and drink for years to deal with his mother’s death – and says Meghan encouraged him to start therapy

But, the prince said in his new show, by the time he was 28 he would ‘freak out’ whenever he saw a camera flash or he had to get into a car, and over the weekends he ‘probably drank a week’s worth in a single day.’

He admitted he had tried drugs and alcohol to numb his pain, not realizing at the time that was what he was doing, and when people close to him told him to seek help, he would say he did not need help.

It wasn’t until he met Meghan, he said in the second episode, that he decided he needed help.

‘I knew that if I didn’t do the therapy and fix myself that I was going to lose this woman who I could see spending the rest of my life with,’ he said, recounting how Meghan first suggested he go to therapy after they got into an argument.

He said he realized early on in therapy that he had never processed the loss of his mother, and was projecting that grief onto others.

‘That was the start of a learning journey for me,’ he said. ‘I became aware that I had been living in a bubble within this family, within this institution and I was sort of almost trapped in that sort of thought process or mindset.’

Six-month pregnant Meghan shared with Harry HOW she was going to kill herself before they attended charity function at Royal Albert Hall captured in now infamous squeezing hand pictures

Harry recalled in the second episode how difficult it was for Meghan to adjust to royal life as an outsider, noting, ‘There was a lot of learning in the beginning of our relationship.’

Soon after the relationship started, he said, Meghan was in the proverbial spotlight, with cameras following the couple around.

‘It made my blood boil,’ he said. ‘It makes me angry. It takes me back to my mum, to what I experienced as a kid.’

Making the situation worse, he said, were negative comments on social media.

‘I thought my family would help,’ Harry told Oprah, ‘but every single ask, request, warning, whatever, it is just got met with total silence, total neglect.

‘We spent four years trying to make it work. We did everything that we possibly could to stay there and carry on doing the role and doing the job. But Meghan was struggling.’

Before they walked into the Royal Albert Hall in London for a charity event when Meghan was already six months pregnant, gripping each others hands, Harry said on the show, ‘Meghan decided to share with me the suicidal thoughts and the practicalities of how she was going to end her life.

‘I’m somewhat ashamed of the way that I dealt with it,’ he said, ‘and of course because of the system that we were in and the responsibilities and the duties that we had, we had a quick cuddle and then we had to get changed and had to jump into a convoy with a police escort and drive to the Royal Albert Hall for a charity event.’

‘There wasn’t an option to say, ‘You know what, tonight we’re not going to go, because just imagine the stories that come from that,’ he said, recounting how once the lights dim Meghan started to cry and he felt ashamed he could not go to his family.

 Prince Harry told Oprah that Meghan didn’t kill herself because she didn’t want him to lose another woman he loved

Harry said in an interview with Oprah that the only thing preventing Meghan from killing herself was the thought that it would be unfair to him to lose another woman he loved in his life while also pregnant with their baby.

‘The scariest thing for her was her clarity of thought,’ he said. ‘She hadn’t lost it. She wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t self-medicating, be it through pills or by alcohol. She was absolutely sober. She was completely sane.

‘Yet in the quiet of night, these thoughts woke her up.’

He says he now would like to focus on his son, Archie, ‘rather than every time I look in his eyes wonder whether my wife is going to end up like my mother, and I’m going to have to look after him myself.’

‘That was one of the main reasons to leave,’ Harry said.

Prince Harry says Royals tried to STOP him and Meghan leaving after ‘she was going to end her life’ 

But, the prince said, his family tried to stop him and Meghan from leaving, even as she was supposedly feeling suicidal.

‘That feeling of being trapped within the family, there was no option to leave. Eventually when I made that decision for my family, I was still told, ‘You can’t do this.’ And it’s like, ‘Well how bad does it have to get until I am allowed to do this?’ She [Markle] was going to end her life. It shouldn’t have to get to that.’

He said his biggest regret was not taking a stand earlier in his relationship with Markle, claiming a barrage of attacks on her won’t stop ‘until she dies.

‘It’s incredibly triggering to potentially lose another woman in my life,’ Harry said in the interview with Oprah. ‘Like the list is growing, and it all comes back to the same people, the same business model, the same industry.’

Harry claims Royals showed ‘total neglect’ for his and ‘struggling’ Meghan’s mental 

The Duke of Sussex said on the Apple TV+ series he thought his family would help as Meghan started claiming she felt suicidal, but instead he was ‘met with total silence, total neglect.’

‘We spent four years trying to make it work,’ he says on the show. ‘We did everything that we possibly could to stay there and carry on doing the role and doing the job. But Meghan was struggling.’

He said the way Meghan was feeling reminded him of his own mother’s final days.

‘History was repeating itself,’ he said in an interview with Oprah. ‘My mother was chased to her death while she was in a relationship with someone who wasn’t white. And now look what’s happened.

Ultimately, he claimed, he and Meghan had to leave the U.K. to ‘put our mental health first.’

‘That’s what we’re doing,’ the prince said, ‘and that’s what we’ll continue to do.’

Harry says he was ‘worried and afraid’ to return to the UK for Prince Philip’s funeral 

The Duke of Sussex admitted he was anxious to return to the UK for Prince Philip’s funeral last month.

‘I was worried about it, I was afraid,’ Harry told The Associated Press during a recent joint interview with Oprah Winfrey to promote a mental-health series they co-created and co-executive produced for Apple TV+.

He was able to work through any trepidation using coping skills learned in therapy.

‘It definitely made it a lot easier, but the heart still pounds,’ said Harry, the Duke of Sussex and grandson of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and her late husband Philip.