In the new HBO biopic Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, Prince William and Prince Harry open up about a detail that plagues them to this day. They both express deep regret and sadness that their final phone call with Princess Diana was rushed.
At the time of their mother's death in 1997, Prince William and Prince Harry were just 15 and 12 years old. They spoke to Diana on the day of her death, while she was on holiday in Paris and her sons were spending the summer with Prince Charles and their grandmother Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland.
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They were playing outdoors when they were called inside to take a call from their mum. Like most kids, William and Harry were eager to get back outside and play.
“Harry and I were in a desperate rush to say goodbye, you know, ‘See you later’ …If I’d known now, obviously, what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have been so blasé about it and everything else,” William said in the documentary. “But that phone call sticks in my mind, quite heavily.”
“Looking back on it now, it’s incredibly hard. I’ll have to sort of deal with that for the rest of my life,” Harry said. “Not knowing that was the last time I was going to speak to my mum. How differently that conversation would have panned out if I’d had even the slightest inkling her life was going to be taken that night.”
This is a heartbreaking detail, but the film will focus on the princes' happy memories as well. Above all, they recall that she was such a profoundly loving mother that they still feel her love every day. William says that scarcely a day goes by that he doesn't think of his mum, and Harry says he can still hear her laugh.
The biopic will also focus on Diana's philanthropic work, such as campaigning against land mines and visiting AIDS patients when no one else would.
Diana, along with her companion Dodi Fayed and their driver Henri Paul, was killed in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. 31st August marks the 20th anniversary of her tragic death, but William and Harry are committed to keeping their mum's legacy alive.