Prince Harry doesn't want history to repeat itself.
Prince Harry is worried history could repeat itself
The 38-year-old royal stepped down from official duties in 2020 just two years after he had tied the knot with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and explained that his decision to quit regal life was partly down to the death of his mother Princess Diana - who was killed in a car crash in 1997 at the age of 36 - and recalled his father King Charles breaking the tragic news to him as he insisted he does not wish to become a single dad himself.
He said: "Thinking back to when I was 12 years old sitting in that sunken bed at Balmoral Castle, my father coming in and sharing that news with me only now as part of writing the book did I really think of how many hours he had been awake. And the compassion I have for him and sitting with that for many., many hours, ringing up friends of his working out 'How the hell do I break this to my two sons?'. I never want to be in that position. It's part of the reason why we're here now. I don't want history to repeat itself. I do not want to be a single dad and I certainly don't want my children to have a life without a mother or a father."
Harry - whose elder brother William, Prince of Wales is heir to the British throne - is set to release his controversial autobiography 'Spare' on Tuesday (10.01.23) and explained that during the writing process, he remembers greeting the millions of devastated mourners who had lined the streets in memory of his mother whilst he himself could not show "any emotion" at all.
Speaking on ITV's 'Harry: The Interview', he told Tom Bradby: "I lost a lot of memories on the other side of this mental wall which again I think is so relatable for those who have experienced loss as a youngster. The inability to pull memories back. But I think a lot of it was a defence mechanism. I refer to [my grief] as post-traumatic injury because I don't have a disorder."
"I cried once at the burial and I go into detail about talking about how strange it was and how actually there was some guilt, and I think William as well. Walking around Kensington Palace with 50,000 bouquets of flowers to our mother and there we are shaking people's hands and smiling. I've looked back over it all. The wet hands that we were shaking, we couldn't understand why their hands were wet but it was all the tears that they were wiping away. So that was very strange at the time as youngsters. Seeing this outpouring of emotion from hundreds of millions of people. And everyone felt like they knew our mum. And the two closest people, the two most loved people by her were unable to show any emotion at that moment."
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