New clips from the BBC documentary Diana, 7 Days show how Princes William and Harry defend their father and grandmother’s choices at the time of their mother, Diana, Princess of Wales’ death.
When Diana died, the public was outraged that the Royal Family decided to keep to themselves at Balmoral after the news broke and people travelled from all corners to mourn Diana in London together.
“One of the hardest things for a parent to have to do is to tell your children that your other parent has died,” Prince Harry recalled. “How you deal with that, I don’t know.”
“[Our dad] was there for us — he was the one out of two left, and he tried to do his best and to make sure that we were protected and looked after, but he was going through the same grieving process as well.”
The death of Diana was also hard on Prince Charles remembers Harry, “he was going through the same grieving process as well.”
The documentary focuses on the time from when Diana died to her funeral a week later.
When Diana was killed in the Paris car accident, Harry was only 12-years-old, he spoke of his reaction as “disbelief, refused to accept it. There was no sudden outpour of grief. I don’t think anybody in that position at that age would be able to understand the concept of what that actually means, going forward.”
Prince William who was 15-years-old added on: “I remember feeling completely numb, disorientated, dizzy — and you feel very very confused. And you keep asking yourself, ‘Why me?’ The whole time. Why? What have I done, why has this happened to us?”
This was also the only time in Her Majesty’s reign that Queen Elizabeth chose to care for her grieving family over her nation which much of the documentary focuses on. Harry also speaks out about his disgust over the photos taken of his mother as she lay dying in the back seat of the vehicle.
“At the time, my grandmother wanted to protect her two grandsons and my father as well. Our grandmother deliberately removed the newspapers and things like that so there was nothing in the house to read,” says Prince William.
Adding on: “We didn’t know what was going on, back then there were no smart phones and things like that, so you couldn’t get your news. Thankfully, we had the privacy to mourn and to try to collect our thoughts and have that space away from everybody. We had no idea the reaction to her death would be quite so huge.”
William even touches on what The Queen was going through and how she “felt very torn between being the grandmother to William and Harry and her Queen role, and I think everyone was taken aback of what happened and the speed it happened.”
Diana, 7 Days will be broadcast on BBC 1 on Sunday 27 August at 7:30 pm.
