Ahead of the release of the book, Prince Harry told The Telegraph, “He wanted to talk about it when [we were] younger, which built up a little bit of resentment. It wasn’t anything against him, I just didn’t want to talk about it. And then as we got older, I started to go slightly off the rails, and deal with it through drinking and drugs, and he went completely silent and completely shut down."
“And then my life started to alter and completely change, because I wanted, or had no other choice, than to confront the very thing that I had been running from, or scared of, for all those years," he added.
Admitting that he was not thinking about his mother all the time, he said, “I was doing everything humanly possible not to think about her."
“It was like clearing the windscreen, clearing away all the Instagram filters, all of life’s filters. I started to confront the idea that mummy wanted me to cry. I convinced myself that she must have wanted me to cry, that that was the only way I could prove to her that I still miss her," he said.
Prince Harry also reflected on the time he used ayahuasca, a psychedelic, with a professional.
“After taking ayahuasca with the proper people I suddenly realised – wow! – it’s not about the crying. She [Diana] wants me to be happy. So this weight off my chest was not the need to cry, it was the acceptance and realisation that she has gone, but that she wants me to be happy and that she’s very much present in my life. And now, as two brothers, if one of you goes through that experience and the other one doesn’t, it naturally creates a further divide between you. Which is really sad," Prince Harry said.
The book, Spare, published on January 10, details many aspects of his life including the challenges of growing up in the public eye, his mother's death, and the treatment of him and his wife.
Till now, it has sold more than 1.4 million copies in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
