Inside Diana's heartbreaking final conversation with her sons William and Harry
Princess Diana spoke to her sons Prince William and Prince Harry the night she died in a car accident, and their final conversation was devastating. She died following a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997, alongside her companion Dodi Fayed - just a year after her divorce was finalised.
To mark 20 years since her death, William and Harry opened up publicly about the last time they spoke with their mum. Speaking on the ITV documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, Prince Harry said: "I can’t necessarily remember what I said but all I do remember is regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was. If I’d known that that was the last time I was going to speak to my mother, the things I would have said to her.
Prince Harry and Prince William in 2005 (PA)"Looking back at it now — it’s incredibly hard. I have to deal with that for the rest of my life: not knowing that it was the last time I’d speak to my mum, how differently that conversation would have panned out if I’d had even the slightest inkling that her life was going to be taken that night.”
Prince William also described that phone call. He said: "The very last memory I have is a phone call from Balmoral. At the time, Harry and I were running around, minding our own business, playing with our cousins and having a very good time. Harry and I were in a desperate rush to say ‘Good-bye, see you later, can I go off?’ If I’d known what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have been quite so blasé about it. That phone call sticks in my mind quite heavily.”
Diana's death came a year after her bitter divorce was finalised and following a long separation from Charles. The couple married in a fairytale ceremony more than 40 years ago on July 29, 1981. However, it wasn't long before it was clear that the union had been a mistake due to their age difference and completely different interests. By 1992, it was announced that Charles and Diana had split - although at that time, there were no plans for them to divorce.
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It wasn't until the Queen sent a stark letter saying she would allow the couple to get divorced, but that letter didn't come easily. In 1995, Diana gave her bombshell BBC Panorama interview with Martin Bashir, where she uttered the famous line "there were three of us in this marriage" when referring to Charles and his long-term love Camilla, now the Queen Consort.
The interview, which was watched by 22.8million viewers, caused huge embarrassment for the royal family after she also said the monarchy was in desperate need of modernisation and called the prince's camp the "enemy".
It plunged the royals into crisis as the general public sided with Diana - prompting the Queen to write the letter, which left the princess in no doubt about her annoyance at the interview.
The Queen wrote in the letter: “I have consulted with the Archbishop of Canterbury and with the prime minister and, of course, with Charles, and we have decided that the best course for you is divorce."
The letter reportedly left Diana furious as she felt she was being forced to agree to a divorce - despite not wanting one. Days later, Buckingham Palace formally announced the divorce in a statement saying “after considering the present situation the Queen… gave them their view, supported by the Duke of Edinburgh, that an early divorce is desirable".
The following year on August 28, 1996, the divorce was complete. It brought to an end the marriage of the pair that began with a huge fairytale ceremony at St Paul's Cathedral on July 29, 1981.
Diana was reportedly awarded a lump sum of £17million along with £350,000 each year to run her private office. She was also allowed to keep her apartments at Kensington Palace. However, one thing she was stripped of was her title of Her Royal Highness. She then became known as Diana, Princess of Wales.
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