He shook hands wet with tears, but Harry says he only cried once for Diana
Prince Harry says he only cried once after the death of his mother and described feelings of guilt in an interview ahead of the publication of his memoir.
In a clip from the interview to air on Britainās ITV, Harry speaks about being unable to show any emotion when meeting mourners following the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.
āEveryone knows where they were and what they were doing the night my mother died,ā he tells presenter Tom Bradby.
āI cried once, at the burial, and you know 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.ā
Harry describes feeling the mournersā tears on his hands when he shook them.
āThere were 50,000 bouquets of flowers to our mother and there we were shaking peopleās hands, smiling,ā he says.
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āIāve seen the videos, right, I looked back over it all. And the wet hands that we were shaking, we couldnāt understand why their hands were wet, but it was all the tears that they were wiping away.
āEveryone 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.ā
A string of revelations have already been leaked from the memoir, Spare, which is due to be published on Tuesday.
Harry says in the book he thinks that he is unable to cry in public because of his familyās preference for not showing emotion.
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According to The Telegraph newspaper, Harry writes: āI disliked the touch of those hands. Whatās more, I disliked how they made me feel: guilty.
āWhy was there all that crying from people when I neither cried nor had cried?
āI wanted to cry, and I had tried, because my motherās life had been so sad ā¦ but I couldnāt ā¦ not a drop.
āPerhaps I had learnt too well, had absorbed too thoroughly the family maxim that crying was never an option ā never.ā
The Telegraph also reports the book details claims of heated behind-the-scenes arguments between Dianaās brother, Earl Spencer, and the royal family about whether 12-year-old Harry and 15-year-old William should walk behind their motherās coffin at her funeral.
The princeās uncle āflew into a rageā at the idea, calling it āa barbarityā, Harry writes in Spare, recalling the Earl saying: āYou cannot force these children to walk behind their motherās coffin. Itās a barbarity!ā
But when an alternative plan had been suggested of William following his motherās hearse on his own, Harry said he had objected.
āIt didnāt seem right that Willy would have such a hard time without me,ā he says.
Harry writes in the book that āIt seemed like a lot to ask for two childrenā, adding: āSeveral adults were horrifiedā.
The controversial book has been the subject of headlines for days as excerpts were leaked detailing personal details of Harryās love life, drug-taking and rifts within his family.
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