Harry saw harrowing photos of Diana 'slumped on the back seat' in crash
Prince Harry has revealed he saw disturbing photographs of Princess Diana "slumped on the back seat" of her car following her fatal crash.
The Duke of Sussex told CBS's Anderson Cooper that he viewed images of the immediate aftermath of the 1997 accident in Paris when he was an adult, but says he is thankful that he was shielded from some of the more gruesome pictures.
In an interview shown on the 60 Minutes programme on Monday morning to promote his new memoir Spare, Harry went into greater detail than ever before on how he dealt with his mother's death as both a child and adult.
Harry has told, in his book and in interview, how he spent years believing that his mum was not dead, had faked her death and would one day "reappear", call her sons and they would "go and join her."
He told Cooper how believed this for many years, holding out hope until adulthood and waking every morning wondering "maybe this is the day that she's gonna reappear". And he and William spoke about it, with the Prince of Wales having "similar thoughts".
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Prince Harry saw photographs of his mum in the aftermath of her fatal car accident (CBS NEWS)But the Duke told Cooper that once he reached the age of 20 he asked to be allowed to go and view files containing images of his mother, her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and the driver Henri Paul at the scene of the crash in the Paris tunnel.
When asked why Harry wanted to see files that contained photographs of the crash scene, the Prince said it was for "proof".
"Proof that she was in the car. Proof that she was injured. And proof that the very paparazzi that chased her into the tunnel were the ones that were taking photographs - photographs of her lying half dead on the back seat of the car," he said.
Harry went to view the images when he was 20 after spending years hoping his mother was still alive (CBS NEWS)Harry writes in Spare that he "hadn't been aware before this moment...that the last thing Mummy saw on this earth was a flash bulb."
Cooper asks: "That's what you saw in the pictures?"
Describing what he saw, Harry said: "Uh-huh. Well they were - the pictures showed the reflection of a group of photographs taking photographs through the window, and the reflection on the window was - was them.
The Duke of Sussex said he was grateful he had been prevented from seeing more "gruesome" images of the crash (Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images)"All I saw was the back of my mum's head - slumped on the back seat."
He added that there were "other more gruesome photographs" also taken by paparazzi but he was "eternally grateful" to his press secretary for "denying me the ability to inflict pain on myself by seeing that".
Harry added: "Because that's the kinda stuff that sticks in your mind forever."
Later on in his interview on CBS, Harry confirmed to Anderson that he and his brother "both directly" asked their dad not to marry Camilla after Diana died.
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"We didn't think it was necessary," Harry explained.
"We thought that it was gonna cause more harm than good and that if he was now with his person, that-- surely that's enough. Why go that far when you don't necessarily need to?."
Charles and Camilla tied the knot in a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall on April 9, 2005, with both Prince William and Harry present at the ceremony and an official blessing from the Archbishop of Canterbury at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.
Harry's interview with Anderson follows the first British broadcast of the Duke of Sussex's UK chat with ITV News presenter Tom Bradby.
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