He didn’t believe she was dead for a long time.
The revelations from Prince Harry‘s press tour in promotion of his memoir Spare continue to come out. And the latest set of admissions stem from the duke’s Sunday night interview on 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper, in which he revealed the moment he found out from his father King Charles that his mother Princess Diana had died in a car crash.
Cooper recited a passage from Harry’s book, before asking him about his reaction to learning of his mother’s death. “In the book you write, ‘He says, “They tried, darling boy. I’m afraid she didn’t make it.” These phrases remain in my mind like darts on a board,’ you say. Did you cry?” Cooper questioned. Harry replied, “No. No. Never shed a single tear at that point. I was in shock, you know?”
He continued, “Twelve years old. Sort of — 7, 7:30 in the morning, early. Your father comes in, sits on your bed, puts his hand on your knee and tells you, ‘There’s been an accident.’ I couldn’t believe.”
Anderson also read an excerpt that stated the manner in which King Charles told his son. “You write in the book, ‘Pa didn’t hug me. He wasn’t great at showing emotions under normal circumstances. But his hand did fall once more on my knee and he said, ‘It’s going to be OK.’ But after that, nothing was OK for a long time,'” Anderson read. “No, nothing, nothing was OK,” Harry confirmed.
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The Duke of Sussex also spoke about his disbelief surrounding his mother’s passing. This denial went on for years, Harry told Cooper. “For a long time, I just refused to accept that she was gone,” Harry said. “Part of, you know, she would never do this to us, but also part of, maybe this is all part of a plan.”
Cooper interjected, “You really believed, that maybe she had just decided to disappear for a time?” Harry responded that both he and his brother Prince William believed this. “For a time, and then that she would call us and that we would go and join her, yeah.” It wasn’t until he asked to see the police reports at 20 that he believed she was really gone. Cooper asked Harry why he would want to see photos from the crash. “Mainly proof,” Harry said. “Proof that she was in the car, proof that she was injured, and proof that the very paparazzi that chased her into the tunnel were the ones taking photographs of her lying half-dead on the backseat of the car.”