The Duke of Cambridge has spoken for the first time of his sadness that his mother, the late Princess of Wales, was not at his wedding.
The Duke said last year’s Royal Wedding was the “one time” since his mother’s death in 1997 that he wished she could have been alive to bear witness.
In an interview with US television station ABC, due to be screened on Tuesday night, he said: “It’s the one time since she’s died, where I’ve … I’ve thought to myself it would be fantastic if she was here, and just how sad really for her, more than anything, not being able to see it.”
In the interview, with journalist Katie Couric, he also spoke of his sadness that his mother will never meet his wife.
He added: “I think she … she would have loved the day and I think, hopefully, she’d be very proud of … of us both for the day. I’m just very sad that she’s never going to get a chance to meet Kate.”
And The Duke revealed it was “very difficult” to prepare himself emotionally for the big day to ensure he did not break down.
He added: ““I sort of prepared myself beforehand so that I was sort of mentally prepared … I didn’t want any wobbly lips or anything going on.”
Prince Harry was also interviewed for the show ‘The Jubilee Queen with Katie Couric’. He too spoke about his mother’s absence at the wedding, but said he consoled himself with the thought that she was watching from above.
“I think she had the best seat in the house probably,” the Prince said, “But yeah, she would have loved to have been there.”
Harry also spoke of his nerves before and during the ceremony.
“I was massively nervous. Everybody was nervous,” he said. “The whole thing was a bit of a blur to be honest because there was God knows how many millions or billions of eyes focused on us. Luckily, mainly those two.”
During his interview Prince Harry also discusses what the Queen is like behind closed doors.
“In a small room with close members of the family, then she is just a normal grandmother. Very relaxed,” he said. “She obviously takes a huge interest in what we all do, that’s her children as well as her grandchildren. She wants to know which charities we’re supporting, how life is going in our jobs and such. So you know, she has a vested interested in what we do.
“When we were young it was very easy to take our grandmother for granted. She was just a grandmother to us. It’s only really sort of been over the last sort of five, eight to ten years that I’ve actually really learned to sort of understand and accept the huge deal that she is around the world, especially within the UK.”
Prince Harry, 27, toured as his grandmother’s royal envoy for the first time in March, visiting the Caribbean, Central and South America.
But he admitted he was a long way from taking on the sheer number of public duties the Queen performed at his age, shortly after she took the throne.
He said: “This tour itself has been a brief insight as to what she had to deal with at a very young age … what she’s achieved and what she’s done and at the age of 25 … confronted with the world’s media. And you can see it in her face now. You can see it in the way that she parades herself is just immaculate. And she’s learned it from all the years of experience.”
In the show The Duke also reveals that The Queen advised him to rip up an official list of invites to his wedding and start again with his friends.
He said: "I was given a list in the first meeting of 777 names, and not one of them on there I knew. So it was a bit daunting and it was like, well, that seems to be the guest list’s sorted, but no room for friends or family. And I wasn’t too happy about it. She said, ‘Ridiculous. Get rid of the list. Start from your friends.’”
