Diana’s final call haunts her sons
William and Harry bare their souls in a candid and emotional TV interview
Princes William and Harry have bared their souls in the most candid and emotional interview they have ever given about their mother. Among their revelations, the brothers describe how they are haunted by the final phone call Princess Diana made to them from Paris, hours before her death.
The boys cut the conversation short because they were busy playing with their cousins — something that has caused them heartache to this day. “I have to deal with that for the rest of my life,” Harry now says.
“This is the first time the two of us have ever spoken about her as a mother. [It was] arguably probably a little bit too raw until this point. It’s still raw,” he says.
The result is the most revealing royal interview since 1995, when Diana admitted to having an affair.
William says he thinks of his mother every day and felt her presence at his wedding. Touchingly, Harry admits he can “still feel the hugs she used to give us”, and misses that embrace. They paint a portrait of a devoted mother — a caring, passionate woman who had “the ability to change the mindset of millions”.
Yet they also celebrate her impish streak, with Harry saying “she was a total kid through-and-through and never happier than when she was with her children driving through country lanes with the roof down”.
Above all, it is their painfully frank recollection of their last conversation with Diana that will hold millions in thrall when their interviews are broadcast in Britain today.
The two Princes say they will never escape the regret they feel at hastily ending her call from Paris because they were playing in the Scottish Highlands with Peter and Zara Phillips.
At the time — August 30, 1997 — William, then 15, and Harry, 12, were at Balmoral, while Diana was in France with Dodi Al Fayed, the son of the tycoon who then owned Harrods, Mohamed Al Fayed. Having not seen each Diana holding Prince William while pregnant with Harry. other for nearly a month, Diana and her sons were looking forward to a reunion in London the following day. William describes the truncated fiveminute phone call as his “very last memory” of his mother.
Appearing solemn and occasionally casting his gaze downwards, he says: “I think Harry and I were in a desperate rush to say ‘goodbye’, ‘see you later’, and ‘we’re going to go off’. . . If I’d known what would happen I wouldn’t have been so blase about it. But that phone call sticks in my mind quite heavily.”
Asked if he recalled what his mother said to him, he replies wistfully with a half-smile: “I do, I do,” but doesn’t elaborate.
The phone call is fixed in the mind of Harry, too as he lays bare his heartache with almost harrowing candour. The ITV interview is part of a 90-minute documentary marking the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death.
The Princes say, as the anniversary approached, they felt compelled to be more candid to celebrate her life as “a tribute from her sons”. Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy will screen in the UK this morning and tomorrow night at 8.35pm on Three.