The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry have opened up about the last time they spoke to their mother, Princess Diana, before her death in 1997.
The brothers revealed that they spoke to Diana on the phone just hours before she was killed in a car crash, with both admitting that the brevity of the call still haunted them today.
The pair were at Balmoral Castle in Scotland when Diana phoned them from Paris, with Prince William saying that they were “running around, minding our own business, playing with our cousins and having a very good time” and therefore rushed to say “goodbye, see you later, can I go off?”
Speaking in a documentary about their mother’s life that will air on ITV tonight, the Duke of Cambridge added, “If I'd known what was going to happen I wouldn't have been quite so blasé about it.
“That phone call sticks in my mind quite heavily.”
Also addressing the phone call, Prince Harry added, “I can't necessarily remember what I said, but all I do remember is regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was.”
He went on to describe the lasting impact the call has had on him.
“If I'd known that that was the last time I was going to speak to my mother, the things I would have said to her...” he said.
“Looking back at it now, it's incredibly hard. I have to deal with that for the rest of my life – not knowing that it was the last time I'd speak to my mum, how differently that conversation would have panned out if I'd had even the slightest inkling that her life was going to be taken that night.”
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death, with the documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy celebrating her life and work, including the numerous charities she supported. She was 36 years old when she died, while Princes William and Harry were just 15 and 12, respectively.
And speaking in the documentary, Prince Harry discussed what it was like growing up with his mother, describing her as a “kid through and through.”
"When everybody says to me, you know, so she was fun, give us an example... All I can hear is her laugh in my head,” he said.
“And that sort of crazy laugh of where there was just pure happiness shown on her face.”
The Princes, who rarely speak about their mother in public, added that the 20th anniversary of her death felt like an appropriate time to share some of their favourite memories of their time with her.
“There's not many days that go by that I don't think of her,” the Duke of Cambridge said.
“Her 20th anniversary year feels like a good time to ... remember, you know, all the good things about her and hopefully provide maybe a different side to her that others haven't seen before.”
Ahead of the documentary, the brothers also shared a number of previously unseen images from the “personal photo album of the late Diana, Princess of Wales” on the Kensington Palace Instagram account, including images of the brothers both on holiday and at home with their mother (below).
Touchingly, the brothers also opened up about how loved their mother made them feel, and how enduring that love is, even 20 years after her death.
“We felt, you know, incredibly loved, Harry and I,” Prince William said. “I'm very grateful that that love still feels there.”
And Prince Harry added, “It was that love that even if she was on the other side of a room ... you, as a son, you could feel it.”
Images: Rex / HBO
Watch Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, tonight at 9pm on ITV
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