💔 Prince Harry’s Haunting Request: The Photos of Princess Diana’s Crash He Couldn’t Ignore
In his memoir Spare, the Duke of Sussex reveals a heartbreaking truth: as a grieving 12-year-old, he begged to see the photos of the wreckage that killed his mother. “I was looking for evidence… proof that it was true,” Harry admits.
For decades, the world has speculated about Diana’s final moments — but for her son, the need to confront the reality became an unbearable obsession. Behind palace walls, aides whispered their horror as young Harry pushed to uncover the images no child should ever see.
What he discovered, and the scars that linger to this day, reveal the devastating cost of growing up royal under the shadow of unimaginable loss.

Prince Harry Asked to See Photos of Princess Diana’s Car Crash: ‘I Was Looking for Evidence…It Was True’

The Duke of Sussex, who was 12 when his mother died in a Paris car crash, wrote about coping with Princess Diana’s death in his book Spare 

Prince Harry and Princess Diana.Credit : Karwai Tang/WireImage; Tim Graham Picture Library/Getty Images

Prince Harry is recalling coping with his mother Princess Diana’s death.

The Duke of Sussex said he asked to see photos and the secret government file of the fatal car crash in Paris that killed his mother in 1997 in his book Spare, parts of which he read during his interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby that aired on Sunday.

“I saw the photographs of the reflection of all the paparazzi in the window at the same time,” he said, adding, “I saw the back of her blonde hair, you know, slumped on the back of the seat.”

However, some of the more graphic photos were removed, something Harry said he was “grateful” for.

“But I was, I think I, at that point, I was looking for, I was looking for, I was looking for evidence that it was after that it actually happened, that it was true,” he said. “But I was also looking for something to hurt because at that point I was still pretty numb to the whole thing. That was, again, my body, my sort of nervous system just kind of shut down and said like, ‘Let’s not.’ “

Prince Harry, who was 12 when Diana died, recalled that his father, King Charles, told him of the accident, sitting on his bed at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and saying, “Darling boy, mummy’s been in a car crash.” Harry said he waited for his father to confirm that Princess Diana would be okay but was told she “didn’t make it.”

Prince Harry said he cried only once, at his mother’s burial.

“I go into detail about how strange it was and how actually there was some guilt that I felt — and I think William felt as well — by walking around the outside of Kensington Palace,” he said. “Fifty-thousand bouquets of flowers to our mother and there we were shaking people’s hands, smiling. I’ve seen the videos, right? I’ve looked back over it all. And the wet hands that we were shaking — we couldn’t understand why their hands were wet, but it was all the tears they were wiping away.”

He added, “Everyone thought and felt like they knew our mum. And the two closest people to her, the two most loved people by her, were unable to show any emotion in that moment.”

The Duke of Sussex said it was decided that Princess Diana’s two sons — Prince Harry and Prince William — would walk behind her coffin in the procession through London at her funeral.

“And there’s absolutely no way that I would let him do that by himself,” Harry said of his brother. “And there’s absolutely no way that he would let me do that by myself.”

In an exclusive excerpt from Prince Harry’s memoir, PEOPLE revealed for the first time how the royal relived Princess Diana’s final moments before her death.

While attending the 2007 Rugby World Cup semifinal in Paris, a then 23-year-old Harry drove through the same tunnel where his mother died 10 years prior. In his new book, he recounts the intense pain he felt in his attempt to find closure.

After the driver took him through at the same speed that his mother’s car was driving, Harry wrote, “I’d always imagined the tunnel as some treacherous passageway, inherently dangerous, but it was just a short, simple, no-frills tunnel.”

The book jacket of Prince Harry’s memoir ‘Spare’.PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE

Prince Harry’s memoir, which will be released on Jan. 10, is an “intimate” and “heartfelt” look into the “experiences, adventures, losses, and life lessons that have helped shape him.”