While the world watched the general public mourning and funeral for Princess Diana after her shocking death in 1997, the princess’s youngest son, then 12-year-old Prince Harry, mentioned he believed his mom hadn’t died.
“I think for anyone, especially if you’re a kid, I was 12 years old,” he mentioned. “I refused to accept that was what had happened.”
Diana died at age 36 following a automotive crash in a Paris tunnel, throughout which paparazzi pursued her.
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In “Spare,” which can be launched globally on Tuesday, Harry describes the morning of Aug. 31, 1997, when his father, now King Charles III, delivered the devastating information that Diana died.
“It was really important to be able to sketch that scene and share with people where my story really began,” Harry advised Strahan, including, “As a dad, I would never, ever want to have to break that news ever, so I have a huge amount of sympathy and compassion and understanding now about how ill-equipped I guess my dad was, how ill-equipped anybody would be in that situation.”
Harry mentioned Charles waited to inform him about Diana till the morning, when he woke him and shared the information.
“I don’t think my family knew what to do,” Harry mentioned. “I don’t think they knew what to do, and I can’t say whether other families would’ve done a better job.”
Harry writes in “Spare” about how he suffered after Diana’s death, together with his lack of ability for a few years to cry over her death.
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Looking again, he advised Strahan he wonders if his expertise would have differed had he been capable of search skilled counseling after his mom died.
“I wish I had the ability or the opportunity to do some form of therapy, or at least be able to talk more about losing my mum and celebrating her life,” he mentioned. “But who’s to say that at age 12 whether I would’ve even said yes to that.”
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Harry mentioned his army service, in his 20s, helped him cope.
“If you ask me questions like, ‘How would your life have differed if you’d done therapy then?’ Well, I probably would’ve done less drugs. I would’ve probably drunk less, partied less. Not to say I wouldn’t have partied and done all those things, I probably would’ve done [them], but not for the reason that I was doing them,” Harry mentioned.
“For me, it was kind of either trying to find a feeling or numb a feeling, but my military service literally saved me,” he mentioned.
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WATCH: Prince Harry via the years
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Harry mentioned he believes Diana can be “heartbroken” on the state of his and William’s relationship now.
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“I think she would be sad,” Harry mentioned. “I think she’d be looking at it long-term to know that there are certain things that we need to go through to be able to heal the relationship, but I think she would be heartbroken that it’s ended up where it’s ended up.”
Harry, now a father of two who lives along with his household in California, added that he had “felt the presence of my mum more so in the last two years than I have in the last 30.”
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Neither Kensington Palace, the workplace of William and Kate, the Princess of Wales, nor Buckingham Palace, the workplace of Charles and Camilla, the Queen Consort, have commented on the claims Harry makes in “Spare.”
ABC News reached out to Kensington Palace and Buckingham palace for response to Harry’s remarks in our interview. Kensington Palace declined to remark.
ABC News obtained a response from the regulation agency representing Buckingham Palace Monday saying that the palace wanted to “consider exactly what is said in the interview and the context in which it appears,” and requested that we provide them instantly with a duplicate of the whole interview. We don’t do this as a information group as a matter of coverage.
