Prince Harry candidly discussed the repercussions of his parents’ divorce, revealing that the separation of King Charles and Princess Diana resulted in him and his brother, Prince William, “bouncing between the two of them” and not spending enough time with either parent. The Duke of Sussex shared these insights in a 2017 ITV documentary about his mother, Princess Diana.
Recalling the challenges of growing up amid his parents’ separation, Prince Harry stated, “There was the point where our parents split, and the two of us were bouncing between the two of them, and we never saw our mother enough or our father enough. There was a lot of traveling and a lot of fights in the back seat with my brother, of which I would win. So there was all of that to contend with. And I don’t pretend that we’re the only ones to have to deal with that. But it was an interesting way of growing up.”
In a separate statement, Prince Harry addressed perceptions of his mother, saying, “I’ve always heard people refer to my mother as paranoid, but she wasn’t. She was fearful of what was happening to her, and now I know that I was the same. I think she had a lived experience of how she was struggling to live that life. She felt compelled to talk about it. She always spoke the truth about her experience.”
The separation of then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana was officially announced in December 1992 after 11 years of marriage. The couple finalized their divorce in August 1996. Tragically, on August 31, 1997, Princess Diana passed away due to injuries sustained in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris, France, a year after their divorce.
