Prince Harry opens up about grief in emotional conversation with military charity to support bereaved children
27 June 2024, 06:43 | Updated: 27 June 2024, 11:47
Prince Harry has opened up about his relationship with grief in an emotional conversation with a charity founder who helps military families facing the loss of loved ones.
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In a video released by the charity, Scotty’s Little Soldiers founder and widow Nikki Scott tells the prince of the moment in 2009 she told to her son that her husband had been killed.
Corporal Lee Scott was killed in Afghanistan while serving with the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment
"It shattered his world. It was the worst," she says. "How do you tell a five-year-old this?"
The Duke of Sussex, a global ambassador for the charity, then describes how difficult talking about feelings of loss can be.
“You convince yourself that the person you’ve lost wants you, or you need, to be sad for as long as possible, to prove to them that they're missed,"
"But then there's this realisation that they'd want me to be happy".
Harry's mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, died when he was 12 in a car crash.
“That’s the hardest thing, especially for kids, which is, ‘I don’t want to talk about it because it will make me sad,’" he said.
"But once realising that if I do talk about it, and I’m celebrating their life, then actually, things become easier, as opposed to this, ‘I am just not going to talk about it and that’s best form of coping,’ when in fact it’s not.".
"It can be for a period of time.
"If you suppress this for too long, you cannot suppress it for ever, it is not sustainable and it will eat away at you inside."
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'Truly inspirational'
He praises Mrs Scott's efforts in supporting other families in such difficult moments, calling her "truly inspirational".
The conversatione ends with an embrace, she says: "I feel the need to give you a hug," to which the prince replies: "Let's do it."
