The Duke and Duchess of Sussex — Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — were involved in a “near catastrophic car chase” at the hands of aggressive paparazzi throughout Manhattan on May 16, and the entire situation is more than just a terrifying experience for Harry.
In the early morning hours of August 31, 1997, Princess Diana was killed after a chase with paparazzi in Paris, France — Harry was only 12 years old when he lost his mother, and it’s something he had a hard time reckoning with, something he shares in his book, Spare.
“I’d know if she weren’t. My body would know. My heart would know. And neither knows any such thing. Both were just as full of love for her as ever.”
In fact, Harry admits to crafting stories in her absence to create a world where her not being there made sense. At twelve, he couldn’t understand that his mother was simply never coming home.
“Of course, it’s all a ruse, so she can make a clean start! At this very moment she’s undoubtedly renting an apartment in Paris or arranging fresh flowers in her secretly purchased log cabin somewhere way up height in the Swiss Alps. Soon, soon, she’ll send for me and Willy. It’s all so obvious. Why didn’t I see it before? Mummy isn’t dead! She’s hiding!”
Prince Harry opened himself up in the most vulnerable state possible in writing Spare, and much of that had to deal with the untimely death of his mother. It was the catalyst for his life progressing in ways he never saw in his future.
Processing her death was also unfathomable for him because of the regret he holds in his heart for their last conversation. He’d been eager to play with his cousins and didn’t give his mother the time he usually would, saying he’d been “short with her.”
“She’d called early in the evening, the night of the crash, but I was running around with Willy and my cousins and didn’t want to stop playing. So I’d been short with her. Impatient to get back to my games, I’d rushed Mummy off the phone. I wish I’d apologized for it. I wish I’d searched for the words to describe how much I loved her.”
Understanding the heaviness Prince Harry carries regarding the death of his mother and acknowledging how much a paparazzi car chase became the bane of his very existence puts the traumatic experience of Prince Harry, Meghan, and her mother, into perspective, or at least — it should.
When it comes to the paparazzi, many celebrities will tell you that it can feel like living under a microscope, with photographers being incredibly inconsiderate of life and circumstance. Chasing celebrities isn’t an unheard-of method for grabbing the “perfect snap,” but you’d think a person looking for a photograph would be aware of the royal family’s tainted history with paparazzi.
It goes without saying that Prince Harry wasn’t just living in the traumatic moment as their driver attempted to navigate them to safety last night, but in the past and the untimely loss of the woman he loved most in this world. As some facets of the paparazzi become more desperate to look at the lives of those in the public eye, they lose sight of the fact that they’re impacting real people.
This doesn’t mean that all paparazzi are willing to go to extreme lengths to get a snapshot, but it questions how far some do go and how invasive these tactics can become, especially when there’s a heavy aspect to what’s going on. Celebrity breakdowns have been publicized in the media, snaps taken of people in the public eye at their most vulnerable, and Prince Harry was involved in a chase much like the one that took his mother’s life. Where is the line drawn?
If you read Spare, you can sense Princess Diana’s loss in every aspect of Prince Harry’s life, in the moments he’s actively talking about her and even in moments when he’s not. It’s heartbreaking that he’s had to face another instance where the most important woman to him was put at risk for the sake of a picture.