The sudden death of Princess Diana was mourned all over the world, but of course it hit her two sons the hardest. Now 20 years after her passing, Prince William has opened up about the difficult task of laying his mother to rest.
Specifically, the 35-year-old revealed that he felt Diana's presence while walking behind her coffin at her funeral on Sept. 6, 1997.
"It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, that walk," he revealed in a trailer for "Diana, 7 Days," a new BBC documentary that focuses on the week following Diana's death. "It felt she was almost walking along beside us to get us through it."
Prince Harry also recalled the funeral, saying, "I remember people's hands were wet because of the tears that they had just wiped away."
William and Harry were just 15 and 12 years old, respectively, when they lost their mother. At her funeral, the two boys walked alongside their grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, their uncle, Earl Spencer, and their father, Prince Charles.
In the ABC documentary "The Story of Diana," Earl Spencer — who is Diana's brother — revealed that he was specifically concerned for Harry at the time because he was so young.
"Harry was this tiny little thing. And I was just so worried, you know, what a trauma for a little chap to walk behind his mum's body," he said. "It's just awful. I tried to stop that happening. But it wasn't going to happen."
William and Harry were staying at Balmoral in Scotland with their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, when they heard their mother had died in a car crash in Paris.
"The shock never leaves you," the third-in-line-to-the-throne said earlier this year of discovering the news. "The shock is the biggest thing, and I still feel it 20 years later about my mother."
In the past, both princes have opened up about the loss of their mother. However, the documentary "Diana, 7 Days," which airs on Aug. 27, marks the first time the brothers will speak in-depth about her passing.
I think an element of it is feeling like we let her down when we were younger. We couldn't protect her.
"Part of the reason why Harry and I want to do this is because we feel we owe it to her," Prince William says in the doc, according to EW. "I think an element of it is feeling like we let her down when we were younger. We couldn't protect her. We feel we at least owe her 20 years on to stand up for her name and remind everybody of the character and person that she was. Do our duties as sons in protecting her."
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