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| Katie Couric interviews Prince William at Clarence House |
Prince William, Duke of Cambridge shares with Katie Couric how he’d wanted his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to meet Kate on his wedding day.
The prince said it was the 'one time' since she died that he'd really missed his mother and he'd felt 'sad' knowing she wouldn't be there.
William opened up during an interview at Clarence House, where he lives with Kate, for the U.S. show The Jubilee Queen with Katie Couric, screened on ABC last May 29.
'I sort of prepared myself beforehand so that I was sort of mentally prepared,' he said. 'I didn’t want any wobbly lips or anything going on,' Prince William told Couric in the interview ahead of the celebrations in honour of the Queen's 60-year reign.
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| Interview with Prince Harry in Brazil |
'It was the one time since she's died where I've thought to myself it would be fantastic if she was here. And just how sad really, for her more than anything, not being able to see it.
'I think she would have loved the day and I think, hopefully, she’d be very proud of us both for the day. I’m just very sad that she’s never going to get a chance to meet Kate.'
Prince Harry shares the same, too it was a poignant moment, as he felt his mother's absence acutely, knowing especially that 'she would have loved Kate.'
'I think she had the best seat in the house probably,' Harry said. 'She would have loved to have been there.'
Harry, who acted as his brother's best man, also confessed he was 'massively nervous' on his brother's wedding day.
'Everybody was nervous,' he said. 'The whole thing was a bit of a blur to be honest because there was God knows how many millions or billions of eyes focused on us. Luckily, mainly those two.'
'Honestly it was one of those days where you feel very elated. Also completely terrified, I have to be honest. The prospect of two billion people watching was quite daunting.'
Royal biographer Penny Junor, the author of 'Prince William: The Man Who Will Be King', writes that Prince Charles and Diana's highly publicized affairs left a lasting impact on their son’s life that it contributed to Prince William's delayed marriage proposal to now-wife Kate Middleton, claiming that the second in line to the throne was worried if he will stick to one one woman.
'The problem was William: he had very real worries about whether it was possible to love just one woman. After his hurricane childhood, he was understandably cautious about committing to a relationship,' Junor writes in the book.
Katie Couric, she was 'trepidatious' to ask the princes about Diana because it was 'so personal and private', also talked to the princes about their relationship with the Queen.
The stories that the heirs to the throne shared shows that they have a very close bond with her, one that is much more normal than expected.
'I still think she's just my grandmother, really,' Prince William shares when asked there was a moment when he though her grandmother was not like like everyone else's.
But continued, admitting: ''When I was younger and my parents used to always slap my hand if I was picking my nose or if I was running around screaming I was told to shut up. And I sort of understood that when I was around her I needed to be a little but more low key and little bit more polite.'
Meanwhile, Prince Harry, who was talking to Couric in Brazil, said he couldn't imagine taking on the responsibility that the Queen did in 1953.
'This tour itself has been a brief insight as to what she had to deal with at a very young age,' Harry said. 'What she's achieved and what she's done and at the age of 25, confronted with the world's media. You can see it in her face now. You can see it in the way that she parades herself is just so immaculate.'
When it comes to family though, he said his grandmother is 'really very very normal. Very relaxed. She obviously takes a huge interest in what we all do, that's her children as well as her grandchildren.
'She wants to know which charities we're supporting, how life is going in our jobs and such. So you know, she has a vested interested in what we do.'
And it seems her interests go beyond what her own twenty-something grandsons are up to.
Joking about the Queen's Facebook page, he lamented that she hadn't 'friended' him yet and asked Couric whether she had received any friend requests from his grandmother herself.
'She's managed to get the family to move with the times and I think that's incredibly important. You can't get stuck in an old age situation when everything else around you is changing so you have to go with it,' he said approvingly.
From William's description of his first meeting to discuss the royal wedding, it would appear however, that when it comes to business versus family, Britain's monarch does not waste time in prioritising.
'I was given a list in the first meeting, of 777 names, and not one of them on there I knew,' he recalled. 'And I wasn't too happy about it so I rang her for a bit of moral support, and a bit of back up, and she said "don't be so ridiculous. Get rid of the list and start from your friends."'
