Harry’s secret rage ‘I wanted to punch someone’
Prince Harry has revealed he was so angry about his mum’s death he even wanted to ‘punch someone in the face’
In the past week, a courageous, dignified and painfully honest Prince Harry has shown the world that it’s OK to talk about your mental health – even when you’re a royal.
Opening up in a powerful interview about his mother Diana’s death on 31 August 1997, when he was just 12, there was no PR speak.
Harry’s story was a heartbreakingly frank description of how grief – and the sudden, shocking loss of a mother figure – shaped the prince’s entire journey towards adulthood.
He wasn’t speaking as a royal. Harry, 32, who is dating American actress Meghan Markle, 35, was speaking as a son who, at a delicate age, had his beloved mother torn away from him.
Harry admitted he ‘shut down all his emotions’ for nearly 20 years after Diana’s death. Even the pleas of his worried older brother, William, fell on deaf ears.
He said his anger over his loss was so strong that he would feel ‘on the verge of punching someone’. Those two decades were followed, he said, by two years ‘of total chaos in my life’, at which point he decided to confront the pain he was burying, aged 28, and had counselling.
Losing Diana had ‘quite a serious effect’ on his personal and professional life, he said. Things got so bad, Harry was ‘dangerously close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions’.
But happily, Harry – who also took up boxing to help manage his anger – revealed he’s finally in a ‘good place’.
If this handsome prince can wear his heart on his sleeve, maybe it’s time we all ditched the British stiff upper lip.
If Di were here now, how incredibly proud she’d be…
Harry admitted he ‘shut down all his emotions’ for nearly 20 years after Diana’s death...