celebrity

Princess Diana died when Prince Harry was 12. Years later, she sent him a 'message'.

In the latest leaked excerpt from Prince Harry's upcoming memoir, the Duke of Sussex writes about the time his mother, the late Princess Diana, spoke to him from the grave.

Although the book's official release is on Wednesday, January 11, in Australia, Spare went on sale early in Spain. 

Several media outlets have obtained excerpts from the book, which include stories about Harry's relationship with his brother, Prince William, his teenage years of exploration, and details about how Diana's death affected him growing up.

Listen: Andrew Morton gives his insights on King Charles’ coronation, how he thinks Diana would feel about Harry and William’s relationship, the media’s treatment of Meghan Markle & his new book The Queen: Her Life. 


The Guardian reporter Martin Pengelly, who obtained a copy of the book ahead of its release, shared how Harry's sadness over his mother's passing led him to seek out a woman who "claimed to have 'powers'".

Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris in 1997 when her youngest son was 12. 

Now 38, Harry writes in his memoir how the unnamed woman he visited passed on a message. 

"You’re living the life she couldn’t. You’re living the life she wanted for you," she told him.

Harry recalls how he "recognised the high-percentage chance of humbuggery" but he saw the woman after trusted friends recommended her.

ADVERTISEMENT

"The minute we sat down together, I felt an energy around her," he writes.

When she said to him, "Your mother is with you," Harry replied, "I know. I’ve felt that of late."

And when he asked for a "sign, proof", the woman spoke about a story involving an ornament.

Earlier in the book, Harry recounts how a Christmas tree ornament in the shape of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, was accidentally smashed by Harry's son, Archie.

The woman, he writes, said his mother was there, watching over the incident.

"Archie tried to fix it," Harry told her.

The woman said: "Your mother says she had a bit of a giggle about that."

Harry also reportedly writes about the moment he found out his mother had died.

"[Dad] sat down on the edge of the bed. He put a hand on my knee. ''Darling boy, Mummy’s been in a car crash,'" Harry recalls, per Page Six.

"I remember thinking: Crash… OK. But she’s all right? Yes? I vividly remember that thought flashing through my mind. And I remember waiting patiently for Pa to confirm that indeed Mummy was all right. And I remember him not doing that."

In another except obtained by People, Harry writes of driving through the same tunnel where Diana died 10 years earlier, when he was in Paris attending the 2007 Rugby World Cup semifinal.

23 years old at the time, Harry asked his driver if he knew the Pont de l’Alma tunnel where his mother died and requested they drive through at 65 miles per hour, the same speed her car was driving that fateful night in 1997.

ADVERTISEMENT

"We came to the mouth of the tunnel. We zipped ahead, went over the lip at the tunnel's entrance, the bump that supposedly sent Mummy's Mercedes veering off course. But the lip was nothing. We barely felt it," Harry writes.

"I leaned forward, watched the light change to a kind of water orange, watched the concrete pillars flicker past. I counted them, counted my heartbeats, and in a few seconds we emerged from the other side."

"I sat back. Quietly I said: 'Is that all of it? It's… nothing. Just a straight tunnel.'"

"I'd always imagined the tunnel as some treacherous passageway, inherently dangerous, but it was just a short, simple, no-frills tunnel. No reason anyone should ever die inside it."

Harry then asked the driver to go through a second time, writing that he thought the experience would bring an end to the "decade of unrelenting pain".

"Instead, it brought on the start of Pain, Part Deux."

Read more on Prince Harry's memoir here:

Feature image: Getty.

Want to get the most out of your day? Take our survey now to go in the running to win a $50 gift voucher!
00:00 / ???