Prince Harry Remembers Refusing To 'Accept' His Mother's Death For 'Many Years'
Princess Diana died in August 1997 in a car crash. Harry was 12 years old at the time.
Looking back on the years after Princess Diana's tragic death, Prince Harry remembered not believing his mom actually died.
While talking to Anderson Cooper in his bombshell 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, January 8, Harry recounted the heartbreaking moment he learned of his mom's death following the August 1997 car crash that took her life.
When Anderson asked the Duke of Sussex whether he cried "through [his] teenager years," as Harry was 12 years old when he lost his mother, he replied, "No," explaining: "For a long time, I just refused to accept that she was gone."
Part of his denial, as Harry explained, was his belief that Diana "would never do this to us," as he suspected news of her death was just "part of a plan."
When the television personality clarified, "I mean, you really believed that maybe she had just decided to disappear for a time?" the 38-year-old responded, "For a time, and then that she would call us and that we would go and join her, yeah."
Harry admitted he believed his mother possibly staged her own death for "many, many years."
"And [Prince] William and I talked about it as well. He had similar thoughts," claimed Harry of his estranged older brother, who was 15 when the tragedy took place.
Anderson went on to read an excerpt from Harry's upcoming memoir, Spare, that read, "I’d often say it to myself first thing in the morning, 'Maybe this is the day. Maybe this is the day that she's gonna reappear.'"
Doubling down on his claims in the tell-all, Harry added during his interview, "Yeah, hope. I had huge amounts of hope."
Years later, when Harry was 20, he finally asked to see the police report on the crash that left Diana, her boyfriend at the time, Dodi Al-Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, dead.
Harry explained that he wanted to see the horrifying photographs for proof, "Proof that she was in the car. Proof that she was injured. And proof that the very paparazzi that chased her into the tunnel were the ones that were taking photographs — photographs of her lying half dead on the back seat of the car."
The trio was killed while being pursued by paparazzi in a Paris tunnel, which Harry drove through for the first time at age 23. Explaining that he asked his driver to go the speed his mom's car was going at when they died to see if it was possible to lose control of the vehicle — sans the press chasing them down — Harry emphasized that he needed to take that "journey."
Spare is set to hit shelves everywhere Tuesday, January 10.
