Diana revealed how she told Princes William and Harry of her split with Prince Charles.
Editor's note: This article was originally published on January 14, 2022. It has since been updated.
Princess Diana had the love of the entire world, but she was not able to secure the love of her husband. Prince Charles was still in love with his former girlfriend, Camilla Parker-Bowles, when he married Diana. In fact, he didn't even want to go ahead with it. Even though Diana tried to be the perfect wife to her husband, she felt like she failed. Things got worse as the years went by. Even the birth of their kids could not save the crumbling marriage Diana and Prince Charles were going through. The couple legally parted ways in 1996 but the entire marriage left a deep impact on Diana.
Diana knew exactly how it felt when a heart is broken and she didn't want the same to happen to her sons; so she gave her elder son a little piece of advice, reported People. In her interview with Martin Bashir, she revealed to him the way she told her sons Prince William and Prince William about her and Prince Charles' divorce. "I went to the school and put it to William, particularly, that if you find someone you love in life you must hang onto it and look after it. And if you were lucky enough to find someone who loved you, then you must protect it," she said.
She later revealed in the interview that her growing son had questions to which he needed answers and she gave them to him. The mother and son shared a very special bond. Prince William was her shoulder to cry on when she needed support. Diana claimed that she shared everything with him. "William asked me what had been going on, and could I answer his questions, which I did," she explained in the interview. "He said, 'Was that the reason why our marriage had broken up?' And I said, 'Well, there were three of us in this marriage, and the pressures of the media was another factor, so the two together were very difficult.' But although I still loved Papa, I couldn't live under the same roof as him, and likewise with him," said added, as per People.
When she was asked how the young Prince took the answers, she said, "He's a child that's a deep thinker, and we don't know for a few years how it's gone it. But I put it gently, without resentment or anger."
"The princess had become increasingly dependent on her elder son, who she regularly confided in, and it was William who would pass his mother tissues through the bedroom door as she sobbed on the other side," penned Nicholl. Prince William even expressed his anger towards his father for making Diana cry.
Diana's parenting style was very different from the way anyone had been raised in the royal family. Her open parenting helped Prince William grow into the man he is today but she couldn't be around for too long. She passed away before she could be a witness to Prince William's transformation through the years.
Prince William loved his mother a lot. In a lot of ways, he shares a lot of his traits with his mother. He proposed Kate Middleton with Diana's sapphire and diamond engagement ring. With her ring, he gave Kate a promise that he would be always by her side. The 40-year-old wishes his mother was around the see him as a husband and a father of three children but by taking his mother's advice he showed that he still respects Diana's ideas.
References:
https://people.com/royals/princess-diana-love-advice-prince-william/
Source: Getty Images | Photo by (L) Pascal Le Segretain, (R) Chris Wood
