Prince Harry Reveals What He Regrets About His Final Phone Call with Princess Diana: ‘I’m the One That Has to Live with That’

Esther LianWed, October 21, 2026 at 1:35 PM UTC

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Prince Harry, 42, in 2026 and Princess Diana, 35, in 1997.Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage; Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty -

In a new interview with GQ, Prince Harry said he thinks about his late mother, Princess Diana, “almost every day”

He recalled the last phone call he had with her before she died in a Paris car crash in 1997

“If I’d known it was the last call with her, how different that conversation would’ve been,” Harry said

Prince Harry is opening up about his regrets over his final phone call with Princess Diana — and wondering what his family would be like if she were still alive.

In an episode of GQ’s interview series One More Question, the Duke of Sussex, 42, spoke about navigating grief decades after losing his mother and the questions he still asks her.

Harry, who explores loss in his new MasterClass with Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor, Redefining Grief: Building Resilience Through Loss, said he thinks about his mother “almost every day.”

“It’s just a quick sort of like, ‘Wow, miss you. Wonder what the world would be like if you were still here. Wonder what my family would be like if you were still here,’” he said.

Princess Diana and Prince William in Hyde Park, London on May 7, 1995.Credit: Justin Goff Photos/Getty

Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997, at age 36. Harry was 12 at the time, and Prince William was 15.

Just hours before her death, Diana called her sons while they were staying at Queen Elizabeth’s Scottish retreat, Balmoral. The phone call was short; Harry and William were keen to get back to playing with their cousins, as they recalled in the 2017 documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy.

It would be the last time Harry heard his mother’s voice.

“If I’d known it was the last call with her, how different that conversation would’ve been,” Harry said in the GQ interview. “And I’m the one that has to live with that. And the fact that as a 12-year-old kid, all I wanted to do was go off and run and play with my cousins.”

Princess Diana at The National Ballet’s performance of ‘Swan Lake’ in London on June 3, 1997.Credit: Dave Benett/Getty

Nearly three decades after her death, Harry still feels a connection to his mother — one that he says sometimes extends beyond simply remembering her.

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“Sometimes there’s questions that I ask her, looking for some kind of response, and sometimes I do get a response,” he said.

“Maybe I’ve spent too much time in California, but having done the work that I’ve done, there is a connection still with my mom that I really do feel her energy at certain times and certain parts of my life,” he said.

That awareness of energy and emotion was something Harry said he hadn’t fully appreciated until his son, Prince Archie, whom he shares with Meghan Markle, was born.

Harry recalled that when he picked up Archie from Meghan while feeling stressed, his son would “feel it immediately.”

“I was so stressed with everything that was happening and everything that I was having to deal with,” he recalled. “But then I would come back, and I would literally take Archie off of Meghan. And if I was still stressed, he would feel it immediately.”

Harry began using his 40-minute drives home from London to calm himself before holding Archie.

“I think as a parent, we’ve just got to be so conscious about what we carry that they can pick up,” he said. “That we know how we’re feeling, and maybe we don’t know how we’re feeling. Your kids will be the first people to tell you because they won’t want to hang out with you.

Prince Harry attends the “United For Freedom” Gala at Imperial War Museum in London on Oct. 1, 2026.Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage

After 20 years of suppressing his feelings, therapy helped Harry give himself permission to grieve and acknowledge his pain. Now, he hopes sharing his story will help others who have experienced loss.

“I continually get told by everybody from 90-year-olds down to nine-year-olds that the sharing part of my experience, sharing part of my story, has helped them,” Harry said. “And as long as that’s the case, then I’m always going to try and make it easier for other people. It doesn’t matter whether it’s one or a million.”

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”