Prince Harry makes haunting confession about Princess Diana's tragic death, Meghan Markle and life after leaving UK: ‘I never…’

Prince Harry has opened up about the lasting impact of losing Princess Diana at age 12 in his new MasterClass, Redefining Grief: Building Resilience Through Loss. The Duke of Sussex, 42, revealed how he wasn't given "permission" to grieve following the tragic death of his mother, Princess Diana. Prince Harry joined neuroscientist Dr Mary-Frances O'Connor and discussed about grief. The Prince told how he "didn't cry" when Diana died in a car crash in Paris in 1997, nor did he for nearly 20 years afterwards.

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In the episode titled Redefining Grief: Building Resilience Through Loss, he said: "I was convinced that was strength, but it wasn’t. It was a 12-year-old boy with no permission to fall apart and no roadmap for how to heal. "You would think I had the best help in the world. I’m a Prince for God’s sake, but I was still grieving and didn’t have any place to put those feelings." Prince Harry said therapy sessions finally gave him "permission to grieve" and enabled him to work through his feelings.

Prince Harry recalls not remembering Diana's laugh

Harry continued: "For 15, 20 years, when I was being asked, 'Are you okay?' My response was, 'I’m fine.' It was numbness, emotional shutdown. And without knowing it, adrenaline was pushing me, was driving me.” "It was the driving force of what took me to joining the military at the age of 20. It was the perfect distraction. I couldn’t really think about much else apart from the task at hand. "I couldn't remember my mum's laugh. I couldn't remember what she looked like. I felt like I had to be sad in order to prove to her that I missed her."

Harry joined the British Army and went to war in his 20s, "thinking I could outrun my feelings". But when he returned from Afghanistan in 2013, he realised it had been a "trigger for other traumas". "I'd spent so long emotionally numb to a large extent because nobody told me joy was still allowed. That it wasn't betrayal," he said. He described wanting to protect Diana's legacy, saying: "Everything I do, everything I put my energy towards, I hope that my mother will be proud about it."

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Prince Harry slipped into depression

He revealed he “slipped into depression” after fleeing the UK with Meghan Markle and their son, Prince Archie, in 2019. The Duke of Sussex said he experienced an “adrenaline crash” when the family arrived in Canada at the time.

“Being in Canada, away from the stressful environment where presumably my body was just pumped full of adrenaline, within two or three days, I experienced this adrenaline crash, something that I’d never experienced before,” Harry, 42, said. The “Spare” author explained that he realized he “needed stress in order to get the adrenaline to make my brain function because I became useless around the house.”

“I actually slipped into depression for about two weeks and I felt like I couldn’t function without adrenaline,” he added.

'Panic attacks on my way to work'

During the MasterClass, Harry reflected on feeling “absolute panic” when he was carrying out his public duties in the UK.

“I started to realize that I had become seriously depleted when just putting a simple dress shirt on — the tightening of the collar — literally felt like I was suffocating, and I would be experiencing panic attacks just in the car on the way to work,” he said.

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“And that’s when I realized, okay, there’s something bigger, there’s something else that you need to look into here.”

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle started living in Canada with their then-infant son in 2019. After staying there for several months the couple announced they were stepping back from their royal duties in January 2020. The couple and Archie later relocated to Montecito, California, where their daughter Lilibet was born in June 2021. In August, the family of four moved back to the UK. However, King Charles, 77, has made it clear that the couple are living in the UK as “private citizens with commercial and charitable interests,” and not as working royals.