How old was Prince William when his mother Diana died?

The world works in mysteriously painful ways. As children, we grow blissfully unaware of the concept that life leads to death, and everything in between involves mourning all that we’re forced to leave behind. For some — namely Prince William and Prince Harry — that reality came sooner than expected when they lost their mother, Princess Diana.

In 1997, the whole world stopped. News of Princess Diana — the People’s Princess — being involved in a fatal car accident flooded the media. Almost immediately, just as fast as the news spread, theories about it being a possible ruse also began to arise. Of course, none of this mattered to the people most affected by this heartbreaking Royal loss — William and Harry.

Regardless of our age, losing a parent is never easy. Losing a parent so publicly and amidst so much scrutiny and theorizing only becomes all the more unbearable. With that said, let’s discuss Prince William’s age when he had to face a reality that all of us eventually must confront.

How old was Prince William when Princess Diana passed away?

In 1997, at the time of Diana’s fatal accident, Prince William was only 15 years old. The Prince and heir apparent is expected to become the King of England, was born in 1982, from Diana’s marriage to the current reigning monarch of England, King Charles. His younger brother, Prince Harry, however, was only 12 years old at the time of their mother’s passing.

Carrying more responsibility than most teens their age, both princes had to mourn and grieve their obviously caring mother in the public eye. At the time of Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris, the two siblings were at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, and were almost immediately forced to react to the news in front of the entire city of London.

As traumatic as it is to lose a parent, to do so publicly at such a tender age must be catastrophically difficult — unbearably so. In fact, in the 2017 HBO documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, the two royals extensively discussed their mother, including the day they lost her. “There’s nothing like it in the world,” William said. “There really isn’t. It’s like an earthquake has just run through the house and through your life and everything.”

At the time of writing, Prince William is navigating both life and royal duties as his father, King Charles III, undergoes cancer treatment. Moreover, his wife, Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, is also receiving cancer treatment. Regardless of his level of fame, or of questionable actions, no one deserves to endure this much suffering.