Prince Harry Regrets "Not Talking About" the Impact His Mother's Death Had on Him

Though Prince Harry has done an exceptional job of following in the late Princess Diana's footsteps, the 31-year-old royal recently admitted that he regrets "not ever talking about" his mother's tragic death and the impact it had on him growing up. In an interview with BBC News on Monday, Harry, who was hosting an event for the mental health charity Heads Together, revealed that he wishes he had spoken out earlier about losing Diana in 1997, when he was just 12 years old. "It is OK to suffer, but as long as you talk about it. It is not a weakness," Harry said, adding, "Weakness is having a problem and not recognizing it and not solving that problem."

Harry also gave advice to English soccer star Rio Ferdinand, whose wife, Rebecca Ellison, passed away in May 2015 after a battle with cancer. Rio is raising the couple's three children and spoke to Harry about dealing with the death of a parent, saying, "He's gone through different stages in his life that my kids are going to be going towards." Harry also opened up about the stigma surrounding depression and mental illness, especially when it appears that someone "shouldn't" be suffering because of their success or status. "It is very easy for someone to look at someone like Rio Ferdinand and say, 'You get paid all the money in the world, you are a successful footballer, you have fast cars,'" Harry told BBC News. "But at the end of the day his wife was snatched from him at an early stage of his life with her. A lot of people think if you've got a job, if you've got financial security, if you've got a family, you've got a house, all that sort of stuff, everyone seems to think that is all you need and you are absolutely fine to deal with stuff."