Prince William makes important decision about Princess Diana film

Prince William faces a difficult milestone next year. August 31 will mark the 30th anniversary since the death of his mother Princess Diana, and there is already speculation as to how he will commemorate the occasion.

It has been widely reported that his younger brother Prince Harry has plans to make a documentary film dedicated to the late Princess. 

While nothing has yet been confirmed, it’s said that Netflix is in the running to make the project, and Harry has reportedly already started to reach out to family members and friends connected to Diana for their contributions.

However, Prince William has taken a wholly different view.

Prince William won’t be ‘pitted’ against Harry

According to The Times, the future King will not make a film about his mother, and has declined ‘several offers to make or appear in documentary tributes’.  

It is understood that William also wants to avoid a situation where he and Harry, who remain estranged, are “pitted against each other” during film-making.

Friends of William’s told the publication that next year’s anniversary is “a difficult situation for him”, and that he remains “really emotional” about his mother’s death. 

The Prince also regards the documentaries he contributed to for the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death in 2017 as his ‘final catharsis’.

How will William mark the anniversary?

It is not known whether William will publicly mark the occasion. But friends believe he is most likely to mark it in private. 

For the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death in 2017, William and Harry collaborated on two documentaries about their mother for the BBC and ITV. 

At a Kensington Palace screening for the ITV documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, William explained why he and Harry considered the film to be their final public word on Diana, telling guests, “We won’t speak as openly about her again.”

During the film, the brothers also described their attempts to deal with their grief. 

“There’s not many days that go by that I don’t think of her … My mother lives with me every day,” William said.  Harry, meanwhile, recalled how Diana “smothered us with love” and said “there’s a lot of grief that still needs to be let out”.

The brothers’ estrangement

The two siblings are now estranged and were last seen together at the funeral of their uncle, Lord Robert Fellowes, in Snettisham, Norfolk, on August 28, 2024. But they sat on opposite sides of the aisle, kept their distance and reportedly did not speak to each other.

They were last seen together publicly at their father’s coronation in May 2023. Despite taking part in the same procession, they were seated separately inside Westminster Abbey; the Duke of Sussex sat two rows behind his brother, alongside his cousins Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.

The brothers did not make eye contact or speak during the televised service, and Harry left the UK almost immediately afterwards to return to California for his son Archie’s birthday.

‘Granny Diana’

William has spoken about how he keeps the memory of his mother alive for his three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis. 

He has said he often speaks to them about “Granny Diana” to keep her memory alive and “remind them that there are two grandmothers … in their lives and so it’s important that they know who she was and that she existed”.

In March 2021, to mark Mother’s Day, Kensington Palace published cards made by Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis for Diana. 

In her card, Charlotte, then five, wrote: “Dear Granny Diana, I am thinking of you on Mother’s Day. I love you very much. Papa is missing you. Lots of love Charlotte xxxxxxxxx.”

George, then seven, wrote: “Dear Granny Diana, Happy, happy mothers day. I love you very much and think of you always, Sending lots of love from George xxxxx.” Little Louis, aged three, painted on a heart shape and added animal stickers.

Princess Diana’s wish for William and Harry

There has been a renewed focus on the relationship between King Charles and Princess Diana following the release of Charles Spencer’s book.

The Earl, 62, made a series of explosive claims – including the allegations that the then-Prince was “giddy” following the death of his ex-wife in a car crash in 1997.

But now, as the dust settles on Swan Song, questions have been raised about the accuracy of the book. 

Buckingham Palace pushed back in an unprecedented statement stating that “fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise”, and Charles was recently forced to issue an apology to Piers Morgan for a factual error within its pages.

And, according to royal expert Ingrid Seward, who maintained a close professional and personal relationship with the Princess, there was no doubt that Charles loved Diana. 

Ingrid – who was speaking on the live recording of HELLO!’s A Right Royal Podcast – also said it was important to Diana that their two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, knew “that their father loved me”. 

She said: “As I said I was very lucky to see Diana shortly before she died, not that obviously anyone knew that, but she was going out with Dodi. And I’d been to the Ritz with her so I knew the whole set up and I knew Dodi, and we talked about it. 

“But she actually told me that she really loved Charles. He was the one she would always love. He was the one that got away, and she said, ‘It’s very important to me, Ingrid, that my boys know that their father loved me. It’s really, really important.’ 

“And she said, ‘And of course, the world won’t know because they won’t see the letters that we wrote to each other.’ They are in the Royal Archives, but of course you have to wait 50 years to see them.”

Charles praises Diana’s ‘beautiful long brown legs’

Ingrid, whose new book Catherine & Diana compares the lives of the two royals, also revealed some of the contents of those letters.

She said: “But Charles wrote her the most beautiful, beautiful love letters, in which he praised her and talked about her in the most loving way saying, ‘I think about your beautiful long brown legs.’ I mean, that’s very charming, isn’t it? Quite sexy, I suppose. 

“But he did love her. He may not have loved her in the very beginning, and he may not have loved her by the end, but he always loved her and he felt so bad that he couldn’t make the marriage work. He was plagued by guilt because he knew he was the one that should have made it work.

“But her intense jealousy and many, many other things… they were just not suited at the time.”

The royal biographer added: “But Diana also said to me she thought if they’d met when they were older, they probably would have made it work and conquered the world; that’s what she loved to say.”