How Princess Diana Shaped Prince William and Prince Harry as Dads

Princess Charlotte Channels Grandma Princess Diana In Royal Family Outing

Princess Diana didn't live to see her grandchildren, but she's had a hand in raising them all the same.

Prince William and Prince Harry's mother, who would have turned 65 on July 1, left her mark on the royal family in so many ways over the course of her 36 years of life, and not least on how the sons she had with now-King Charles III are parenting their own kids.

"I would like to have had her advice," William—who shares Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 11, and Prince Louis, 8, with Kate Middleton—told British GQ in 2017. "I would love her to have met Catherine and to have seen the children grow up. It makes me sad that she won't, that they will never know her."

But, as the future king shared in the 2017 documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, he kept her memory alive by "constantly talking about granny Diana."

Harry—dad to Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, with Meghan Markle—said on Today in 2022 that he felt the presence of "grandma Diana" all the time. "More so now than ever," he noted, "she's very much helping me."

They therefore "have a knowledge," she explained. "They may never use it, but the seed is there, and I hope it will grow because knowledge is power."

William was 15 when Diana died in a 1997 car crash. As he said in Diana, Our Mother, "She gave us the right tools and had prepared us well for life in the best way she could, not obviously knowing what was going to happen."

But when they were kids, he and Harry didn't necessarily realize their mother was a transformative figure.

Rather, she was "one of the naughtiest parents," as Harry remembered her in the doc, while William described her as "very informal," someone who "really enjoyed the laughter and the fun. She always understood there was a real life outside of palace walls."

And Harry thinks that Diana, if she'd been around, would have "saw it coming" when it came to his and Meghan's decision to pursue their independence further beyond the palace walls than anyone envisioned, telling Oprah Winfrey in 2021 that he "certainly felt her presence throughout this whole process."

Incidentally, he did have Diana's tangible support, sharing that, without his inheritance, "we would not have been able to do this."

Harry later admitted, however, that his mother would've been "heartbroken" by the rift between him and William. 

At the same time, he said on Good Morning America in 2023, "I think she would be looking at it long term to know that there are certain things that we need to go through to be able to heal the relationship."

The brothers have only seen each other a handful of times since the Sussexes moved to California in 2020, including when they reunited in 2021 for what would have been their mother's 60th birthday to dedicate a statue of her that resides in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace.

But Diana was all too aware of "William's future being as it is," as she said on Panorama, while Harry needed to be raised "like a form of a back-up in that aspect." So, getting her sons out into the world was also her subtle way of preparing her firstborn for his eventual reign (while also perhaps inspiring the spare heir to fly the coop).

William and Kate will also be passing down that tradition of duty to their firstborn, but their priority from day one has been to approach parenting all three of their kids like a couple of normal people.

“Playdates, taxi driver, sports days, matches, playing in the garden when I can," William said on an October episode of Apple TV+'s The Reluctant Traveler. "School run most days. I mean, Catherine and I share it, but she probably does the bulk of it.”

And none of their kids had cell phones yet, though the Prince of Wales noted that George might get one with "limited access" once he moved on to secondary school. (Which he will be doing this fall, following in his father and uncle's footsteps to Eton College.)

“Everything is about the future," William said, "and about if you don’t start the children off now with a happy, healthy, stable home, I feel you’re setting them up for a bit of a hard time and a fall."

Diana wouldn't have described her life with Charles as happy, healthy or stable before they separated in 1992, but she made sure to shower their kids with as much love as possible.

When she went to Eton to break the news to William that she and his father were splitting up, she recalled on Panorama telling her eldest son "that if you find someone you love in life you must hang on to it and look after it, and if you were lucky enough to find someone who loved you then one must protect it."

Considering how he showed up for his wife and children after Kate's cancer diagnosis in 2024, and how Harry has put his family before all else, Diana can rest easier knowing that her children inherited the most important things she had to give.

See how William and Harry have paid tribute to Princess Diana through the years: