Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle stepped back from their royal duties back in 2020 and ever since the Duke of Sussex has made a number of shocking claims about his life and treatment within The Firm. The claims vary between different things from his sour relationship with his father King Charles, to the breakdown of his bond with his brother, Prince William. However, there is one key theme that he has spoken about time and time again.
Over the years, Harry has opened up about the impact that his mother's death had on his mental health. Harry was just 12 when his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales was killed in a car crash. This is a subject which was also touched on in author and journalist Tina Brown's book The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor - the Truth and the Turmoil, writes The Mirror.
Speaking to The Telegraph ahead of the book's release earlier this year, Tina said: "The Oprah interview was desperately damaging to any relationship that Harry could ever hope to have with his family.
"And even that could have been gradually assuaged if he hadn’t then announced he was doing a memoir. I think the memoir was actually more breath-taking than the interview. Frankly, berating the world for the lack of privacy he’s had and now he can’t stop giving interviews… It’s amazing.
"He’s so emotionally needy that he’s been completely and utterly taken over by Meghan and his whole personality has changed. It’s a really sad thing to a great many people. Meghan seems to answer some huge need in Harry and it seems like they are in a powerful co-dependency. And I do question how it will end."
Prince Harry was previously very open about the struggles he faced after his mother's death when he co-created the mental health documentary series 'The Me You Can’t See' with Oprah Winfrey for Apple TV.
The series saw Harry tell Winfrey that the trauma of the loss caused him to suffer anxiety and severe panic attacks from ages 28 to 32. Speaking to the camera, The Duke of Sussex revealed that the pain of his mother’s death led him to use alcohol and drugs to “mask” his emotions and to “feel less like I was feeling”.
He continued: “I was just all over the place mentally, every time I put a suit on and tie on … having to do the role, and go, ‘right, game face’, look in the mirror and say, ‘let’s go’. Before I even left the house I was pouring with sweat. I was in fight or flight mode.”
In an interview with PEOPLE Magazine earlier this year, Harry explained how his mother inspired him to set up the Invictus Games and how he keeps her memory alive in his children, Archie and Lilibet. He said: "I honour my mother in everything I do. I am my mother's son." Harry went on to add that Diana’s memory and "presence" has been a "constant" in his life, but most prominently in the last two years.
He added that he refers to her as ‘Grandma Diana’, and has hung a number of photographs of her around his Californian home. Diana's biographer Andrew Morton previously spoke to The Mirror's podcast, Pod Save the King, about Prince Harry and how he still turns to his late mother for guidance in a spiritual way.
Morton said: "I think that Diana's influence has lasted longer than anybody thought because her torchbearers in life, William and Harry, have not forgotten her and have held concerts in her memory. Harry himself says that he never makes a decision without referring it to her in a spiritual sense.
"She marked a turning point in the way the Royal Family behaved and through her behaviour helped to modernise and make more human the Royal Family. So it wasn't big handbags, white gloves and standoffish. It was more touchy-feely than it had ever been in the past. So she made the Royal Family more relevant to modern times."
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