Prince Harry has said he does not have many early memories of his mother Princess Diana believing he has “blocked them out”.
The Duke Of Sussex opened up about the late Princess Of Wales in the new Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, which dropped on Thursday.
Diana died in a car crash in Paris when Harry was just 12. The royal said the majority of his memories as a child are “of being swarmed by paparazzi”.
“My childhood, I remember, was filled with laughter, filled with happiness and filled with adventure,” he said.
“I don’t have many early memories of my mum. It was almost like internally I sort of blocked them out.
“But I always remember her laugh, her cheeky laugh, her always saying to me ‘You can get in trouble – just don’t get caught’.
“I’ll always be that cheeky person inside.”
The Duke continued: “The majority of my memories are of being swarmed by paparazzi,” he said, adding that they rarely had a holiday without someone jumping out of a bush with a camera.
“Within the family, within the system, The advice that’s always given is don’t react. Don’t feed into it,” he said.
Episode one features footage of a young William and Harry playing at a piano accompanied by their parents and interview footage of Diana talking about her two sons.
William appears to tell Harry not to stand on his toe, and Diana says: “William. He’s a typical three-year-old. Very enthusiastic. Whereas perhaps Harry is more quieter and just watches.
“He’s certainly a different character altogether.”
The “unprecedented and in-depth” docuseries, directed by Oscar-nominated Liz Garbus, is billed as a Netflix global event, with Harry and Meghan sharing “the other side of their high-profile love story”.
The couple address a number of topics in the documentary, with Meghan also detailing her first meeting with Prince William and Kate when they came over for dinner – and it turns out they are not huggers.
“Even when Will and Kate came over, I met her for the first time… I remember I was in ripped jeans and I was barefoot,” Meghan recalls.
“I was a hugger, always a big hugger, and I didn’t realise that’s really jarring for a lot of Brits.
“I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside. That there is a forward-facing way of being and then you close the door and [Meghan exhales]...and say ‘Oh good, we can relax now.’ But that formality carries over on both sides, and that was surprising to me.”
The first three episodes of Harry & Meghan are streaming on Netflix now.