Prince Harry Opens Up About the Pain of Losing His Mother Diana in New Emotional Video
The Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, has opened up about his experiences with bereavement and grieving in an emotional conversation with Nikki Scott, founder of Scotty’s Little Soldiers, a charity supporting military families facing the loss of a loved one.
“You convince yourself that the person you’ve lost wants you, or you need, to be sad for as long as possible, to prove to them that they’re missed,” said Prince Harry, reflecting on the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, when he was just 12. “But then there’s this realisation [that] no, they must want me to be happy.”
In a poignant video released by the charity, Scott recounts the heart-wrenching moment in 2009 when she had to inform her five-year-old son that his father had been killed in Afghanistan. “It shattered his world. It was the worst,” she says. “How do you tell a five-year-old this?”
Prince Harry, an ambassador for Scotty’s Little Soldiers who has even dressed up as Father Christmas for the charity’s events, spoke about the difficulty of discussing feelings of loss. “That’s the hardest thing, especially for kids, which is, ‘I don’t want to talk about it because it will make me sad,’” he explained. “But once realizing that if I do talk about it, and I’m celebrating their life, then actually, things become easier, as opposed to this, ‘I am just not going to talk about it and that’s the best form of coping,’ when in fact it’s not.”
The prince emphasized the unsustainability of suppressing grief. “If you suppress this for too long, you cannot suppress it forever; it is not sustainable and it will eat away at you inside.”
Prince Harry also highlighted how distressing it can be for people who are reluctant to talk about their feelings of grief. “Especially when every defense mechanism in your mind and nervous system and everything else is saying, ‘Do not go there,’” he noted.
He praised Scott’s efforts in supporting other families through such difficult moments, with Scotty’s Little Soldiers aiming to help 1,000 young people each year.
At the end of their heartfelt conversation, Scott expressed a desire to give Prince Harry a hug, to which he warmly responded, “Let’s do it.”
This candid discussion sheds light on the importance of addressing grief openly and the impact that charities like Scotty’s Little Soldiers can have on those navigating the complex emotions of loss.