PRINCE Harry has said he can’t think about his mother as it’s too painful.
The Duke of Sussex revealed the torment of attending Princess Diana’s funeral – and how he is still haunted by “the sound of the horses’ hooves going along the Mall”.
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Harry opened up about the pain of the death of his mum, who died in a car crash in August 1997 when he was just 12, in his new documentary The Me You Can’t See.
He recalled the moment he walked behind his mum’s coffin alongside his brother, uncle and grandfather.
The 36-year-old told Oprah Winfrey during the programme: “When my mum was taken away from me at the age of 12, I didn’t want the life, sharing the grief of my mother’s death with the world.
“For me, the thing I remember the most was the sound of the horses’ hooves going along the Mall.
“It was like I was outside of my body and just walking along doing what was expected of me.”
The duke also expressed his frustration that the country grieved for his mother, despite not knowing her personally at all.
He said: “(I was) showing one tenth of the emotion that everybody else was showing: This was my mum – you never even met her.
“I was so angry with what happened to her and that there was no justice, at all. Nothing came from that.”
Discussing his memories of Diana, Harry said: “Unfortunately when I think about my mum, the first thing that comes to mind is always the same one over and over again.
“Strapped in the car, seat belt across with my brother in the car as well and mother driving and being chased by three, four, five mopeds with paparazzi on.
“She was always unable to drive because of the tears. There was no protection.”
He said the trauma of his mother’s death led him to use alcohol and drugs to “mask” his emotions and to “feel less like I was feeling”.
“I was willing to drink, I was willing to take drugs, I was willing to try and do the things that made me feel less like I was feeling,” he said.
He told Winfrey he would drink a week’s worth of alcohol on a Friday or Saturday night, “not because I was enjoying it but because I was trying to mask something”.
He added that he wishes his mum was still alive so she could meet his wife and children.
“I wish she could have met Meghan. I wish she was around for Archie,” he said.
“I’ve got a photo up in his nursery and it was one of the first words that he said. Apart from ‘mama’, ‘papa’, it was then ‘grandma’, ‘grandma Diana’.
“It’s the sweetest thing but at the same time makes me really sad.”
The five-part celebrity-packed doc was released on Apple TV in the US on Thursday night and the UK this morning.
The series focuses on mental health, with Harry telling Winfrey the trauma of his mother’s death caused him to suffer anxiety and severe panic attacks from ages 28 to 32.
“I was just all over the place mentally,” he said. “It was a nightmare time in my life.”
