The Duke of Sussex said he is “eternally grateful” for seeing photographs of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales after she was killed in a car crash and believes those responsible “all got away with it”.
In his first primetime television interview promoting his memoir Spare, Harry said he saw photographs of his mother “slumped on the back of the seat” after asking for evidence of her death.
Diana was 36 when she was killed in a car crash in Paris on August 31 1997 while being pursued by paparazzi.
He told ITV’s Tom Bradby: “The idea that she’d been taken away and that William and I were now motherless, was something that I just couldn’t comprehend. I’d heard people talking about there being photographs.
“By this point, I was starting to understand the involvement of the paparazzi chasing her and to this day, I will remain eternally grateful for Jamie (his private secretary) for showing me, what he believed I needed to see, but removing the stuff that he knew I didn’t need to see.
“I don’t know where I’d be now if I saw the stuff that I wanted to see, that I demanded to see.”
Harry said the “descriptive photographs” had been removed but in the images he saw the reflection “of all the paparazzi in the window” while his mother lay dying – the idea of which “still hurts”.
He said: “I saw the back of her blonde hair slumped on the back of the seat. There were other photographs, that would probably show my mother’s face and blood. And those, I assume were the ones that Jamie removed. And I’m grateful to him for that.
“I was looking for evidence that it actually happened, that it was true. But I was also looking for something to hurt, because at that point I was still pretty numb to the whole thing.”
Harry told Bradby there were “multiple occasions” when he was driving himself back into London when he had paparazzi “jump on the bonnet of the car”.
He said: “I physically couldn’t see anything. When you’ve actually experienced the same thing, which you assume your mother’s driver was experiencing at the time, then it’s really hard to, I guess, understand how some people have come away with the conclusions of that night.
“And that the people that were predominantly responsible for it, all got away with it.”
Harry: The Interview is available to view on ITVX.
