William, the Prince of Wales appeared to reference his late mother during his and the Princess of Wales’ appearance on BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat programme.
Prince William and Kate Middleton joined Newsbeat presenter Pria Rai and four mental health advocates to mark World Mental Health Day, which fell on Monday (10 October).
In the interview, which aired on Tuesday (11 October), William said: “A lot of the work we’ve done on mental health and listening to lots of people talk about it, everyone likes a toolbox - particularly men. A toolbox is quite a useful analogy to kind of use.
“A lot of people don’t realise what they need until it actually comes along. You can be living one life one minute and something massively changes and you realise you don’t necessarily have the tools or the experience to be able to tackle that.”
William was just 15 years old when his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, died in 1997.
Elsewhere during the interview, Kate stated that one of the messages she and William are trying to convey is that mental health shouldn’t always have “negative connotations”.
“Everyone has mental health as well as physical health,” the princess said, adding that it’s important that each are looked after.
Kate also noted that the last time they were on BBC Radio 1, which was in 2017, there has been more things that can impact our mental health, such as the pandemic.
One of the guests, mental health advocate Antonio Ferreira, said: “You know, you can’t always run away from the issue, sometimes you have to really face them and conquer them and so, you know, with practice there’s progress, and that’s, I guess, in a nutshell how... it was a big question!”
To which Kate replied: “There’s no right or wrong, that’s the thing as well. Different things will work for different people and it’s just sometimes trying isn’t it, as well.”
If your mental health is suffering, you can text ‘SHOUT’ to 85258 to talk to an advisor.