Prince Harry convinced himself Princess Diana had faked her accident and was in hiding, according to the latest bombshell in his upcoming autobiography.
Details of the moment the Duke of Sussex's father Charles broke the news to his younger son that his mum had died and how he tried to recreate the night Diana died have already been leaked following early publication in Spain.
Spare is set to be released on Tuesday, and tight pre-launch security was supposed to be in place to ensure details were not published before then. But the Mirror obtained a copy after Spare accidentally went on sale early in Spain.
These excerpts are based off a translated version of Prince Harry ’s book Spare.
In it, Prince Harry writes how he convinced himself that Diana wasn't dead and that she faked her death to go into hiding, after he was given the earth-shattering news aged just 12.
He wrote he justified this theory by thinking: "She's been very unhappy, she's been harassed, lied to, and lied about her.
"So she's faked this accident as a move to make them get away from her."
He goes on to write that he believed Diana was renting an apartment in Paris or had secretly bought a cabin in the Swiss Alps.
Harry wrote believing this theory made him feel "much better" about her traumatic death.
He further reveals his inner turmoil at this theory, by not believing she would ever run away like this to rationalising that she didn't have a choice.
Harry wrote he believed she would always come back.
The leaked excerpt reads: "This is her way of fighting. She will come back. Sure. In two weeks it's my birthday."
Just two weeks after Diana died following a car crash in Paris, Harry turned 13 and returned to his boarding school Ludgrove.
In his new memoir Spare, he reveals how he enjoyed a birthday cake and sorbet at the school before being presented with a gift by his aunt, Diana's sister Sarah McCorquodale.
And he says that the gift was an X-box games console that Diana had bought for him before she had died and had been planning to give him on his special day.
Throughout the book, Harry writes often of the grief he experienced after his mother's untimely death in 1997, when he was just 12 years old.
Towards the end of the book, he also claimed a woman with "powers" relayed a message from his late mother Princess Diana, telling him he was "living the life she wanted for you".
This story is based off a translated version of Prince Harry ’s memoir Spare. Spare published by Penguin Random House will be available to buy in the UK on January 10.
