Harry explains why he struggled to feel happy after losing Princess Diana
Prince Harry says he felt guilty about being happy after his mother, Princess Diana, died. He believed that staying sad was a way to show how much he missed her.
Speaking in a new MasterClass episode, Harry described spending years feeling cut off from his emotions.
“I felt like I had to be sad, and I had to be emotionally numb in order to prove to her that I missed her,” he said.
Understanding that his mother would want him to be happy changed how he thought about his grief. “It freed me,” he said.
Diana died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. Harry said shutting down his feelings helped him focus on his duties, especially during his military service. But it also helped him avoid facing his grief.
He worried that healing would mean losing both his ability to stay focused under pressure and his connection to his mother.
Harry said he first cried at Diana’s burial, away from the cameras. For about 10 years, he struggled to believe she was really gone. He imagined she had escaped her difficult life and would one day return to take him and his brother away.
During those years, he said, he also blocked out memories of her.
“I forgot what my mom sounded like. I forgot her laugh.”
Harry said he can now recognise when his body reacts strongly to stress. He uses breathing exercises to calm himself, although managing these reactions remains a work in progress.
He finds happiness in his charity work and life with his wife, Meghan Markle, and their children, Archie and Lilibet. He said balancing these parts of his life also takes effort.
The episode is set for release ahead of World Mental Health Day on October 10. It supports Comfort Zone Camp and Scotty’s Little Soldiers, two charities that help young people cope with the death of someone close to them.
