Prince William Had No Idea of Princess Diana's Fears of Being Killed

Princess Diana always had a special connection with her eldest son, William, and they talked about almost everything. However, the Duke of Cambridge did not know the depths of Diana's fears of being killed.

In the book Brothers and Wives: Inside the Lives of William, Kate, Harry, and Meghan, author Christopher Andersen wrote about Diana and William's relationship. William would often find himself cheering up his mother after she and his father Prince Charles would argue. The young prince was her pillar of support. The late princess even asked her son's opinion on people. "She'd ask him what he thought of this person or that person or whether he thought someone on the staff was doing a good job," the writer noted, per AmoMama.

William was mature beyond his years, even offering comfort to his mother after she and Charles decided to part ways. "I hope you will both be happier now," William reportedly told his mother after kissing her on the cheek. Despite their close connection, William was too young at the time to know that his mother feared for her own life. Once, the Princess of Wales was driving through Central London when she approached an intersection and was almost broadsided by another car due to brake failure.

She suspected that this was no accident. She wrote a note to her friends Elsa Bowker, Lucia Flecha de Lima, Simone Simmons, and Lady Annabel Goldsmith. "The brakes of my car have been tampered with," Diana wrote. "If something does happen to me it will be MI5 or MI6." William did realize his mother was not always happy and had fears about her safety because of her experiences with the press. Once, two men forcefully opened the passenger's door to see Diana with her head down, crying. She told her son that she never lifted her head and cried all the way back to the palace. She tried to keep her children as safe as possible but some incidents were too painful for her to bear alone.

Prince William mentioned the incident in the HBO documentary Diana: Our Mother. According to TIME, the protective son shared, “If you are the Princess of Wales and you’re a mother, I don’t believe being chased by 30 guys on motorbikes who block your path, who spit at you, who shout at you and who react really badly to get a reaction from you, and make a woman cry in public to get the photographs, I don’t believe that is appropriate. I sadly remember most of the time that she ever cried about anything was to do with press intrusion.” That's truly heartbreaking to know that a son remembers his late mother this way.

References:

https://news.amomama.com/291709-william-was-once-described-dianas-altern.html

https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=3242874

https://time.com/4871176/prince-william-hbo-documentary-paparazzi/

Cover Image Source: Photo by Daily Express | Hulton Archive | Getty Images