Prince Harry Recalls Shaking the Wet Hands of Mourners After Princess Diana’s Death

In a new interview, Prince Harry recalls the emotional days following the death of his mother, Princess Diana, and how he pursued his royal duties after her death.

Speaking to the UK’s ITV for a meeting to be broadcast on January 8 – two days before the publication of his controversial memoir Spare, the former royal recalled how, aged 12, he and brother Prince William, then 15, joined their father, now King Charles III, in greeting mourners and watching floral tributes around Kensington Palace in honor of the late Princess of Wales shortly after she was killed aged 36 in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997.

“I cried once, at the funeral. I go into detail about how strange it was and how, actually, there was some guilt that I felt, and I think William felt too, walking around Kensington Palace,” Harry. said ITV’s Tom Bradby. “And there are 50,000 bouquets for our mother. And there we were, shaking people’s hands, smiling. I’ve seen the videos. I watch them all. The wet hands that we were shaking – I couldn’t understand why the hands were wet “.

Harry then explained, “It was all the tears they were hiding.”

All the top bombshells from the Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Documentaries

According to Harry, the crowd’s reaction to the death of the woman often called “The People’s Princess” marked a sharp contrast to how her sons appeared. “Everybody thought and felt like they knew my mom,” he said, “and the two people closest to her — the two people she loved the most — were unable to show any emotion at that moment.”

Diana was buried on September 6, 1997 in a national funeral that was broadcast live around the world. Harry, William, Charles and Diana’s brother Earl Charles Spencer walked behind her coffin during the procession through the streets of London.

Getty Images; Shutterstock

Harry has spoken about his mother’s death in interviews before. In his later memoirs, he recalls how his father told him about the sudden death of his ex-wife.

The story continues

Anwar Hussain/Getty Images

According to a copy of Spare’s Spanish version, titled En La Sombra, obtained by NBC News, Charles sat Harry down on a bed. Calling him “my dear son”, the then Prince of Wales informed him that Diana had been in a car accident and that she had suffered injuries that appeared to be irreversible.

“What I remember with stunning clarity is that I didn’t cry,” Harry said in the book, according to a copy obtained by NBC News. “No tears. My father didn’t hug me.”

NBC News reached out to Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace, and they declined to comment. A representative for Harry also declined to comment to NBC News on the record.

(E! and NBC News are part of the NBCUniversal family.)

For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News application