Remembering Princess Diana: Prince Harry's Regrets About Last Conversation With His Mother

August 31 marks 23 years to the day since Princess Diana‘s death.

Unlike the rest of the world, who mark the anniversary once a year as an international tragedy, Prince Harry and Prince William can never stop thinking about that day they lost their mother. One thing Harry thinks about often is what he would have shared with his mother if he had known that a conversation the day earlier would be their last….

In 2017, the brothers shared this and more during Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, a special by ITV and HBO which aired in 2017 to mark the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death.

During the doc, Harry explained that both he and his brother, aged 12 and 15 at the time, were keen to get back to playing with their cousins at the time when the call came in to Balmoral, Queen Elizabeth II‘s retreat in Scotland, from their mother:

“If I’d known that that was the last time I was going to speak to my mother the things that I would — the things I would have said to her.”

The brothers later discussed the doc with reporters during a meeting at Kensington Palace in 2017, with William sharing at the time that it was “a tribute from her sons to her,” but that standing in front of a group of people about to watch the documentary left him “possibly the most nervous I’ve ever been.”

The father of three shared:

“It’s one thing doing a documentary like this and it’s another thing standing front of all of you guys and explaining about something very personal to you. Nevertheless, I think it’s very important that I’m here to do that.”

While the brothers have shared that they “won’t speak as openly and as publicly about her again,” we know it’s not far from their minds, especially during milestone moments and memories. Harry chimed in:

“There’s not a day that William and I don’t wish that she was still around, and we wonder what kind of a mother she would be now, and what kind of a public role she would have, and what a difference she would be making.”

His older brother added:

“We feel hopefully this film will provide the other side from her close family friends that you might not have heard from before, from those who knew her best, and from those who want to protect her memory and want to remind people of the person that she was: The warmth, the humor, and what she was like as a mother, which probably hasn’t come across before in many other pieces from other people.”

Our thoughts are once again with Harry and William today.

[Image via Oxford Film and Television/HBO/ITV & The Royal Family/YouTube.]