How Prince Harry Felt ‘Trapped’ By Royal Life

He seems to happily embrace life as a royal these days, especially as he’s adjusted to life as a husband and father. However, there was a time in his life where Prince Harry actually felt “trapped” by everything he was forced to do and deal with as a young royal.

In the book “Harry: Conversations with the Prince,” royal biographer Angela Levin revealed that behind the scenes, his mother Princess Diana’s death, when he was just 12 years old, led to him constantly feeling as though he was “falling apart inside,” though no one would guess it by the front he would put on in order to complete his royal duties.

“It wasn’t until 2017 that he confessed that the previous few years had been a real struggle, that he’d bottled up his emotions for two decades but waited until he was twenty-eight before seeking help,” she revealed in the book. “At the time he’d felt trapped by his royal life and grief-stricken over the loss of his mother. He badly needed someone to talk to about this but it was hard to find anyone emotionally available.”

Levin went on to state that the Prince had no one to turn to because within his family, it would be hard to find anyone who really could or would listen to him since there were long-standing traditions regarding how much they could express their emotions.

“It was not a subject he felt able to raise with his father who was very happy with Camilla Parker Bowles and had made a new, more contented life for himself,” she wrote. “Harry was pleased for him, but how could he pour out his heart about how much he missed his mother, longed to feel at peace in her arms, when he knew full well how devastated she had been about Camilla’s presence.”

“Nor could he open his heart to the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh who had mixed feelings about the charismatic but troubled princess and believed that emotions should be kept under control, while Harry, like his mother, does not,” she added.

Of course, in the end, he wound up getting the help he needed, and it may have contributed to his being able to commit to his life as a royal—which did eventually include his relationship with his future wife, Meghan Markle.