Whether you are excitedly following the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s trip to Australia or believe it’s a little too similar to a royal tour, there’s no denying that the couple haven’t been shying away from discussing deeply personal matters. A day after Prince Harry described the “disconnection” he felt when Meghan was first pregnant with Archie, he got just as candid about loss.
“In my experience, loss is disorienting at any age,” he declared in a keynote speech at the InterEdge Summit in Melbourne. “Grief does not disappear because we ignore it.”
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“Experiencing that as a kid while in a goldfish bowl under constant surveillance, yes, that will have its challenges,” he declared. “And without purpose, it can break you.”
It does seem to be his mother’s passing and the devastating impact her loss had on his life at an early age that the Duke of Sussex was referring to here. He also confessed that there have been “many times” where he’s felt overwhelmed.
“Times when I’ve felt lost, betrayed, or completely powerless,” Harry continued. “Times when the pressure – externally and internally – felt constant.”
These remarks might well have been more general, though we know just how “powerless” he felt as a child when Princess Diana was being chased by the paparazzi.
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“One of the feelings that comes up with me always is the helplessness. Being too young. Being a guy but too young to be able to help a woman, in this case your mother. And that happened every single day,” he told Oprah Winfrey in their The Me You Can’t See mental health series.
In an interview with Tom Bradby in 2023, the Duke of Sussex recalled the day of Princess Diana’s funeral and explained that “everyone thought and felt” like they knew her. But the “two closest people to her”, her sons, “were unable to show any emotion in that moment”.
He said that he only cried once after her death – at her burial. In his keynote speech in Australia, Harry admitted that for years he was “numb” to intense and difficult moments, as he didn’t have the tools to help himself, but then he reached a turning point.
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“When a parent is overwhelmed, children feel it. When someone is supported, families feel it,” he explained. “For me, one of the biggest shifts came when I realised that asking for help isn’t a weakness. It’s very much a form of strength.”
Elsewhere in his speech, the Duke of Sussex described how when he lost his mother, it made him doubt his royal role. Over the years, things changed for him, leading to him re-focusing on how he wished to use his public platform for good.
“I was like: ‘I don’t want this job. I don’t want this role – wherever this is headed, I don’t like it,” he said, before adding, “Eventually I realised – well, hang on, if there was somebody else in this position, how would they be making the most of this platform and this ability and the resources that come with it to make a difference in the world? And also, what would my mum want me to do? And that really changed my own perspective.”