Prince Harry has opened up about the heartbreaking loss of his mother, Princess Diana, admitting he never dealt with her death.
Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997, when Harry was just 12-years-old. And the Prince, now 32, has admitted that he did not confront his feelings surrounding the tragedy at the time.
The royal opens up about the difficult time in an upcoming ITV documentary, Prince Harry In Africa, to mark the 10th anniversary of the charity Sentebale which he founded in memory of his mother.
He said: “I never really dealt with what had happened. It was a lot of buried emotion. For a huge part of my life I didn’t really want to think about it.
“I now view life very differently from what it used to be. I used to bury my head in the sand, and let everything around you tear you to pieces.
“And now for me, I can see exactly where I want to take it. The fact that I’ve managed to keep Sentebale going… for the last 10/11 years has been fantastic because now everything else I’m involved with make sense to me and I’m just getting started.
“What started as an idea of me turning round and saying, right, I’ve got a year off, I want to do something really constructive with my life, want to do something that makes my mother proud.
“Someone said, ‘Right, go to Lesotho,’ it’s like, where the hell is that? Now I can see exactly where I want to take it. I have huge amounts of passion for the causes and interests and charities I’m involved with.”
Harry added that he wants to do something important in his life and help those that are less fortunate than him.
He said: “I need to make something of my life… I was fighting the system, going, ‘I don’t want to be this person.’ My mother died when I was very, very young and I don’t want to be in the position.
“Now I’m so energised, fired up, to be lucky enough to be in a position to make a difference.”
Watch Prince Harry in Africa on ITV at 9pm on 19 December.
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