You may have seen over the weekend that British GQ released some pics from their current cover story, which is an interview with Prince William about mental health, which also touches on Diana’s death and a variety of other things. In the last six months, he and Harry and Kate have really turned up the heat on their Heads Together charity, and I think it’s great how upfront the boys are being about basically saying, “our mother’s death really screwed us up and here’s what we did to feel better about it.” There’s an illuminating bit in this interview with Wills where he says, of Diana:
“I am in a better place about it than I have been for a long time, where I can talk about her more openly, talk about her more honestly, and I can remember her better, and publicly talk about her better. It has taken me almost 20 years to get to that stage. I still find it difficult now because at the time it was so raw. And also it is not like most people’s grief, because everyone else knows about it, everyone knows the story, everyone knows her. It is a different situation for most people who lose someone they love, it can be hidden away or they can choose if they want to share their story.”
That’s very honest. I’m sure that a lot of people over the years have come up to both William and Harry and laid their own feelings about Diana on them, without truly considering the fact that they’re talking about their mother. Certainly she was the people’s princess — and only more dramatically so after she was killed — but also, she was two real people’s actual mom. Mourning that in public, and with the weight of royal appropriateness bearing down on you, must have added an entire new chapter of grief to something that was already absolutely awful. Here’s the cover:
As part of the @heads_together campaign, The Duke of Cambridge has been interviewed on mental health for British GQ: https://t.co/0J4hU5T83D pic.twitter.com/0Hv7HuekhO
— Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) May 29, 2017
In addition to the snap at the top — which was taken at the garden at Kensington Palace, per the official KP twitter — there’s this pic of Wills with the kids (he talks about them quite a bit in the interview):
New image of William, George & Charlotte for @BritishGQ. With thanks to @james_elliott_ for sharing. pic.twitter.com/c95QjX6naD
— Middleton Maven (@MiddletonMaven) May 29, 2017
George appears to be up to severe mischief, especially in the first shot, and Charlotte is clearly ruminating on the fact that “Gentleman’s Quarterly” is an obvious misnomer, as the magazine publishes monthly, but she’ll wait until she’s alone with her father to bring that up, and instead will continue studiously classifying all types of wild grass currently sprouting in the garden. “Science,” she thinks, “will save us all.”
[All British GQ photography by Norman Jean Roy]
