William: I wish Diana had met my family
He says it’s taken him 20 years to be able to talk openly about loss of mother
Candid: The Duke and Duchess with George, Charlotte and spaniel Lupo in a new image for GQ.
PRINCE William has opened his heart about his ‘raw’ grief over the loss of his mother and his struggle to speak honestly about her death.
In a candid interview, the prince spoke of his sorrow that Princess Diana had not lived to see her grandchildren or to meet his wife, and that he was unable to turn to her for advice.
William, who was only 15 when his mother died in 1997, said he finally felt able to speak about her publicly but admitted it had taken him almost 20 years to reach that point.
He said: ‘I would like to have had her advice. I would love her to have met Catherine and to have seen the children grow up. It makes me sad that she won’t, that they will never know her.’
William’s poignant interview with British GQ magazine came a month after his brother Harry revealed he had sought counselling for his own mental torment over Diana’s death.
The brothers have won praise from mental health charities and campaigners over their decision to talk about deeply personal issues to highlight taboos over mental health. William, 34, was interviewed for GQ by former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell, who has also revealed his own struggles with depression.
The Duke of Cambridge and his wife Kate also posed for casual family photographs in the garden at their home in Kensington Palace, playing with their children Prince George, three, and Princess Charlotte, two.
Dressed down in a jumper, jeans and trainers, Kate, 35, laughs as she appears to share a joke with her young son, while Charlotte plays nearby and the family’s spaniel, Lupo, gambols behind them.
William looks relaxed and happy in the black-and-white photograph, taken by renowned portrait photographer Norman Jean Roy. In the interview, William spoke about his personal struggle to come to terms with the death of his mother, the Princess of Wales, and having to cope with his grief while in the public eye.
He said: ‘I am in a better place about it than I have been for a long time, where I can talk about her more openly, talk about her more honestly, and I can remember her better, and publicly talk about her better.
‘It has taken me almost 20 years to get to that stage. I still find it difficult because at the time it was so raw. And also it is not like most people’s grief, because everyone else knows about it, everyone knows the story, everyone knows her. It is a different situation for most people who lose someone they love, it can be hidden away or they can choose if they want to share their story.’
He also insisted that George and Charlotte will have a ‘normal life’ outside the palace walls.
The prince said: ‘I want George to grow up in a real, living environment, I don’t want him growing up behind palace walls, he has to be out there. The media make it harder but I will fight for them to have a normal life.’ He and the
Duchess of Cambridge have previously issued a warning to paparazzi photographers over their attempts to secure pictures of their children, and have praised the UK press for refusing to publish them.
William added: ‘I could not do my job without the stability of the family. Stability at home is so important to me. I want to bring up my children in a happy, stable, secure world and that is so important to both of us as parents.’
Last month Harry, 32, said he had ‘probably been close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions’ before, encouraged by his brother, he sought counselling.
The brothers and Kate launched a charity, Heads Together, to break nationwide ‘stigma’ surrounding the issue of mental health.
The full interview with William is in the July issue of British GQ, which goes on sale on Thursday.
THIS paper has mixed feelings about RBS shareholders accepting an out- of- court settlement from the bank, thereby sparing the disgraced Fred Goodwin from appearing before a judge.
Certainly, the former chief executive – enjoying a monstrous £342,000-a-year pension at our expense – should be forced to answer publicly for his leading role in precipitating the financial crisis of 2008.
But shareholders were far from the only victims of his reckless greed, from which every taxpayer and saver is still suffering.
Shouldn’t he be dragged before a full, Chilcot-style public inquiry into the City malpractices that caused the crash? With households borrowing £160million a
day to buy cars alone, there are already alarming signs of a new debt bubble.
Until we learn the lessons of 2008 – and hold those responsible to account – there is every danger history will repeat itself. LEAVE aside the obnoxious remarks Alastair Campbell has aimed at the royal family in a lifetime of republicanism. Isn’t it extraordinary that Prince William has chosen to open his heart to the hugely divisive figure of Tony Blair’s liar-in-chief? Who on earth is advising our future King?