Princes William and Harry Discuss Mom Princess Diana’s Fatal Car Crash: ‘I Wouldn’t Let It Break Me’
Prince William and Prince Harry are reliving some of the hardest days of their lives.
In the new documentary Diana, 7 Days, which will air on the BBC and NBC, the royals spoke out about the horrors of their mother’s passing on the 20th anniversary of her death.
Though they recently spoke about the late Princess of Wales in this year’s documentary, Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, this is the first time the brothers have opened up so publicly about her tragic death and the days that immediately followed.
“I think one of the hardest things to come to terms with is the fact that the people that chased her into the tunnel were the same people that were taking photographs of her while she was still dying on the back seat of the car,” Prince Harry, 32, says of the French paparazzi who followed his mother through Paris, leading to the car crash that ended her life in 1997. “We’ve been told that numerous times by people that know, that [were] the case.”
Harry, who was 12 at the time of his mother’s death, was told more as time went on about what happened following the fatal car crash.
"She’d had quite a severe head injury, but she was very much still alive on the back seat," he continues. "Those people that caused the accident, instead of helping, were taking photos of her dying on the backseat. And then those photographs made their way to news desks in this country.”
Prince Harry's older brother, William, who is now 35, says he too had to grapple with his feelings following his mother’s death, while also in the public eye.
“When you have something so traumatic as the death of your mother when you’re 15 -- as very sadly many people have experienced and no one wants to experience -- it will either make or break you,” William says in a clip provided by the BBC. “And I wouldn’t let it break me. I wanted it to make me. I wanted her to be proud of the person I would become.”
MORE: Princes William and Harry Open Up About New Princess Diana Documentary: 'We Owe It to Her'
William admits that he was very concerned about making sure that the morals that Princess Diana instilled in him and Harry were carried on after her death. “I didn’t want her worried or her legacy to be that William and/or Harry were completely and utterly devastated by it," he notes. "And that all the hard work and all the love and all the energy that she put into us when we were younger would go to waste.”
Diana, 7 Days will air on Friday, Sept. 1, on NBC at 8 p.m. ET.
Numerous documentaries and tributes have come out to honor the late Diana as the 20th anniversary of her death approaches. Here's a clip from one such special:
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