Why I regret not talking about my mother’s tragic death
PRINCE Harry has confessed that he regrets not talking about how his mother’s death affected him until three years ago.
Harry, who was 12 and his brother William 15 when Princess Diana died in a Paris car crash in 1997, said he was 28 before he began to talk about it.
He made the admission during a barbecue in the garden of his home at Kensington Palace. The event was attended by a group of sports stars invited to discuss their battles with psychological problems.
Harry, 31, hosted the event for the charity campaign Heads Together, which he and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have created in an attempt to remove the stigma surrounding mental health issues and to get people talking about their problems.
Despite urging others to come forward and be more open, the three royals have proved reluctant so far to discuss their own demons and the way they were affected by others – including Diana’s battle with the eating disorder bulimia and her fragile state of mind.
In 2009, when Prince William became patron of the charity Child Bereavement UK, a source close to the royal brothers said both had received bereavement counselling after Diana’s death. But former staff said William, and Harry in particular, were always reluctant to discuss their feelings with anyone else.
Former England and Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand and Olympic gold medallists Victoria Pendleton and Dame Kelly Holmes were among the guests yesterday.
Weakness
They were accompanied by a partner, relative or sports psychologist who had helped them through their darkest moments.
Harry spoke about his own reluctance to confront his feelings: “Everything can be OK but I really regret not talking about it. You know, for the first 28 years of my life I never talked about it.
“It’s OK to suffer, as long as you talk about it.
“It’s not a weakness. Weakness is having a problem and not recognising it and not solving that problem.”
Ferdinand, a father-of-three whose wife, Rebecca Ellison, died from cancer, said of the Prince: “He’s gone through different stages in his life that my kids are going to be going towards. So to get some of his experiences is very rewarding for me and very educational in many ways.”
Harry added that the key message was that anyone can suffer mental health problems. He said: “Whether you’re a member of the Royal Family, a soldier, a sports star, in a team sport or an individual sport, whether you’re a white-van driver, a mother, father, a child, it doesn’t really matter.”
Former 400m runner Iwan Thomas joined Harry to flip burgers and revealed his battle against depression after a succession of injuries cut short his career.
“I think yes, depression definitely. I didn’t have one injury that was suddenly like, ‘You have to retire tomorrow’.
“That almost might have been easier – being dealt a really bad blow,” he said.
Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes experienced similar difficulties after suffering injuries before the 2004 Games in Athens. She told Harry at the barbecue earlier this month: “I had depression going through my athletics career – no one knew at all what I was going through.
“I was having treatment and they thought I was crying because the treatment was so hard.”