The 2007 Matt Lauer Interview and Diana's boys speaking about Mummy!
Matt Lauer asked if Diana ever sat her sons down to talk about the weight and price of fame. They said it wasn't
necessary. "It was just so obvious," Harry, the chattier of the two, said. "When she comes back from doing
whatever she'd been doing, whether it was tennis and she'd been chased down the road or doing [a] public
engagement. It was clear to see the pressure that she was under sometimes — depending on where she'd been
and what she'd been doing."
The woman the public saw on camera wasn't the same woman they called “Mummy.”
“She wasn't always herself in the camera. She was much more natural behind the scenes when there was no one
else there,” Harry said. “I don't know whether it's the right thing to say. But she was quite good acting, if you know
what I mean. She wasn't acting as though trying to be somebody that she wasn't. But in a very much case of trying
to be as normal as she could in front of the camera is what she hated so much.”
The woman they knew was the one who, when Williams was 2 years old and the family visited Australia, was so
taken with the local fauna she gave her son a nickname — “Wombat.”
“So I just basically got called that,” William said. “Not because I look like a wombat — or maybe I do you know
certain little.
He agreed when Lauer said it was kind of cute — when he was 7years old!.
“I guess you don't want your mates in the pub going, 'Hey wombat. How are you?' Lauer said.
“It kinda stuck with me,” William said. “I can't get rid of it now.”
'A constant reminder'
Harry talked of his mother, the charismatic young woman whose life was both controversial and inspirational, in
the present tense. Indeed, as Lauer observed, it's hard for most people to believe that it's been 10 years already
since she died.
But to her sons, the time, Harry said, has gone "really, really slowly actually. It's weird because I think when she —
she passed away — there was never that time, there was never that sort of lull. There was never that sort of
peace and quiet for any of us — the fact that her face was always splattered on the paper the whole time.
"Over the last 10 years I personally feel as though she has been ... always there. She's always being a constant
reminder to both of us and everybody else."
"There's not a day goes by I don't think . . . about it," William told Lauer. "And so for us . . . it has been a long
time."
Prince Harry is the younger of the two and some call him "The People's Prince" as he reminds people so much in
his manner of his late mother. He is third in line to the throne, behind his father and his brother, Prince William
who inspite of looking like his late mother, character wise being more Windsor than Spencer, no doubt
encouraged to be so by the royals.
The interview was conducted at Clarence House, the princes' London residence. Both William and Harry dressed
casually in slacks and dress shirts with open collars — like two young professionals one might see anywhere.
Yet they are very aware of the privilege to which they were born and the obligations that come with it. Both are
extensively involved with charitable and humanitarian causes.
"We've had a good education. Doesn't show but we have!" Prince Harry said when both were asked what was the
coolest thing about being a prince ?
Their mother had always said that she wanted her sons to lead lives that would be as normal as possible.
"So did they think she would be happy or saddened by the state of normalcy?" Matt Lauer asked them.
"I think she'd be happy in the way that we're going about it, but slightly unhappy about the way the other people
were going about it as in saying, 'Look, you're not normal so stop tryin' to be normal,'' said Harry. "It's hard," he
added. "'Cause to a certain respect, we never will be normal."
But in other aspects, they're just like everyone else. For example, they keep in touch by e-mail, text messaging
and telephone.
When Harry calls, William joked, “It usually means he's left something at home, and I have to bring it to him.”
They see each other “a fair bit,” Harry said, adding, “We are slightly normal. We have a normal side to us.”
Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were married on July 29, 1981. It was a storybook wedding between the
32-year-old heir to the throne and his beautiful and charismatic 20-year-old bride. Some 600,000 people
thronged the streets of London to catch a glimpse of the wedding procession. Less than a year later, Prince
William was born.
Two years later, Prince Harry followed, but the fairy tale was already unraveling. By the end of 1992, the couple
had separated, with their sons, who attended boarding schools, shuttling between their aristocratically aloof father
and their vibrant mother. The couple finally divorced in August 1996.
When she died a year later, it was one of the defining moments of a generation, and Diana remains in death one
of the most influential people of her time.
"When people think about her death, they think about how wrong it was," said Harry, a lieutenant in the British
Army. "They think about whatever happened. For me personally, whatever happened that night, whatever
happened in that tunnel - no one will ever know. And I'm sure people will always think about that."
They don't feel they'll ever see a day when the public has had its fill of their mother.
“I can't really see it ever ending really,” Harry told Matt Lauer. “I think people will always have a fascination about
her and journalists believe that the people -- there's a need to read about her, a need to sort of be reminded
about her.”
A note from Diana to her boys, posted on her original site.
Date Posted:01/03/2006 17:04:31)
" I want to send a special message to you both with all my love. Andrew has not be able to communicate to you
any other way as I am only too aware that had this been so, you'd have been unlikely to have received the
communication obviously and so with no other alternative it is being written, spoken, by me here. There will
naturally be more personal and private communications in the future and it's important that there are but this is
just one to say that I am very aware of the fact that you read my site and are believing in it thank goodness and
which is why I have already said certain things that only you will know to be real and as I personally saw them.
Andrew, as one of my channels, is himself not fully aware of them as it is not necessary for him to be, he's just the
middle - man but this isn't to say that I am not,extremely appreciative of the fact that he has been willing to play his
part in this and his role by no means a small one obviously.,I fully realise that there are and will be questions that
need answering and I can assure you they will be, where there's a will there's a way, but I have things under
control and I am aware that I must be cautious in what I say and particularly in a forum area seen and read by
many people as it is a sensitive issue naturally and not my intention therefore to cause problems for anyone which
would interrupt the natural flow of things. At the moment a lot of what has already been said here, last year in fact,
is only now making official headlines but these in themselves giving validity to the messages spoken of by me
here so serving a very valuable and useful purpose which is why I am content at the moment to leave things as
they are.
The media being extremely helpful to me in this area! Ultimately, as I have said, the truth about things always
comes out and things hidden exposed and depending on the seriousness of them conditioning when but in this
instance it is obvious that truth in this regard is known as soon as possible as it affects your lives in a very
significant way which is why I am determined that albeit in different ways it does so and why it is so important to me
that it does as after all the most important role I played in life, the one of greatest personal significance, the one I
most enjoyed was always " Mummy! "
Matt Lauer asked if Diana ever sat her sons down to talk about the weight and price of fame. They said it wasn't
necessary. "It was just so obvious," Harry, the chattier of the two, said. "When she comes back from doing
whatever she'd been doing, whether it was tennis and she'd been chased down the road or doing [a] public
engagement. It was clear to see the pressure that she was under sometimes — depending on where she'd been
and what she'd been doing."
The woman the public saw on camera wasn't the same woman they called “Mummy.”
“She wasn't always herself in the camera. She was much more natural behind the scenes when there was no one
else there,” Harry said. “I don't know whether it's the right thing to say. But she was quite good acting, if you know
what I mean. She wasn't acting as though trying to be somebody that she wasn't. But in a very much case of trying
to be as normal as she could in front of the camera is what she hated so much.”
The woman they knew was the one who, when Williams was 2 years old and the family visited Australia, was so
taken with the local fauna she gave her son a nickname — “Wombat.”
“So I just basically got called that,” William said. “Not because I look like a wombat — or maybe I do you know
certain little.
He agreed when Lauer said it was kind of cute — when he was 7years old!.
“I guess you don't want your mates in the pub going, 'Hey wombat. How are you?' Lauer said.
“It kinda stuck with me,” William said. “I can't get rid of it now.”
'A constant reminder'
Harry talked of his mother, the charismatic young woman whose life was both controversial and inspirational, in
the present tense. Indeed, as Lauer observed, it's hard for most people to believe that it's been 10 years already
since she died.
But to her sons, the time, Harry said, has gone "really, really slowly actually. It's weird because I think when she —
she passed away — there was never that time, there was never that sort of lull. There was never that sort of
peace and quiet for any of us — the fact that her face was always splattered on the paper the whole time.
"Over the last 10 years I personally feel as though she has been ... always there. She's always being a constant
reminder to both of us and everybody else."
"There's not a day goes by I don't think . . . about it," William told Lauer. "And so for us . . . it has been a long
time."
Prince Harry is the younger of the two and some call him "The People's Prince" as he reminds people so much in
his manner of his late mother. He is third in line to the throne, behind his father and his brother, Prince William
who inspite of looking like his late mother, character wise being more Windsor than Spencer, no doubt
encouraged to be so by the royals.
The interview was conducted at Clarence House, the princes' London residence. Both William and Harry dressed
casually in slacks and dress shirts with open collars — like two young professionals one might see anywhere.
Yet they are very aware of the privilege to which they were born and the obligations that come with it. Both are
extensively involved with charitable and humanitarian causes.
"We've had a good education. Doesn't show but we have!" Prince Harry said when both were asked what was the
coolest thing about being a prince ?
Their mother had always said that she wanted her sons to lead lives that would be as normal as possible.
"So did they think she would be happy or saddened by the state of normalcy?" Matt Lauer asked them.
"I think she'd be happy in the way that we're going about it, but slightly unhappy about the way the other people
were going about it as in saying, 'Look, you're not normal so stop tryin' to be normal,'' said Harry. "It's hard," he
added. "'Cause to a certain respect, we never will be normal."
But in other aspects, they're just like everyone else. For example, they keep in touch by e-mail, text messaging
and telephone.
When Harry calls, William joked, “It usually means he's left something at home, and I have to bring it to him.”
They see each other “a fair bit,” Harry said, adding, “We are slightly normal. We have a normal side to us.”
Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were married on July 29, 1981. It was a storybook wedding between the
32-year-old heir to the throne and his beautiful and charismatic 20-year-old bride. Some 600,000 people
thronged the streets of London to catch a glimpse of the wedding procession. Less than a year later, Prince
William was born.
Two years later, Prince Harry followed, but the fairy tale was already unraveling. By the end of 1992, the couple
had separated, with their sons, who attended boarding schools, shuttling between their aristocratically aloof father
and their vibrant mother. The couple finally divorced in August 1996.
When she died a year later, it was one of the defining moments of a generation, and Diana remains in death one
of the most influential people of her time.
"When people think about her death, they think about how wrong it was," said Harry, a lieutenant in the British
Army. "They think about whatever happened. For me personally, whatever happened that night, whatever
happened in that tunnel - no one will ever know. And I'm sure people will always think about that."
They don't feel they'll ever see a day when the public has had its fill of their mother.
“I can't really see it ever ending really,” Harry told Matt Lauer. “I think people will always have a fascination about
her and journalists believe that the people -- there's a need to read about her, a need to sort of be reminded
about her.”
A note from Diana to her boys, posted on her original site.
Date Posted:01/03/2006 17:04:31)
" I want to send a special message to you both with all my love. Andrew has not be able to communicate to you
any other way as I am only too aware that had this been so, you'd have been unlikely to have received the
communication obviously and so with no other alternative it is being written, spoken, by me here. There will
naturally be more personal and private communications in the future and it's important that there are but this is
just one to say that I am very aware of the fact that you read my site and are believing in it thank goodness and
which is why I have already said certain things that only you will know to be real and as I personally saw them.
Andrew, as one of my channels, is himself not fully aware of them as it is not necessary for him to be, he's just the
middle - man but this isn't to say that I am not,extremely appreciative of the fact that he has been willing to play his
part in this and his role by no means a small one obviously.,I fully realise that there are and will be questions that
need answering and I can assure you they will be, where there's a will there's a way, but I have things under
control and I am aware that I must be cautious in what I say and particularly in a forum area seen and read by
many people as it is a sensitive issue naturally and not my intention therefore to cause problems for anyone which
would interrupt the natural flow of things. At the moment a lot of what has already been said here, last year in fact,
is only now making official headlines but these in themselves giving validity to the messages spoken of by me
here so serving a very valuable and useful purpose which is why I am content at the moment to leave things as
they are.
The media being extremely helpful to me in this area! Ultimately, as I have said, the truth about things always
comes out and things hidden exposed and depending on the seriousness of them conditioning when but in this
instance it is obvious that truth in this regard is known as soon as possible as it affects your lives in a very
significant way which is why I am determined that albeit in different ways it does so and why it is so important to me
that it does as after all the most important role I played in life, the one of greatest personal significance, the one I
most enjoyed was always " Mummy! "
