Prince William used his fringe as a "safety blanket" while walking behind his mother’s coffin.
The 35-year-old royal has admitted the "hardest thing" about the aftermath of his late mum Princess Diana’s death 20 years ago was having to be part of her funeral cortege with millions watching on, and he tried to hide behind his long bangs to pretend it wasn’t happening.
He said: "I think the hardest thing was that walk. I remember just hiding behind my fringe. It was just like a tiny bit of a safety blanket.
"I felt like she [Diana] was walking alongside us to get us through it."
William’s brother Prince Harry, 32, has previously admitted the walk was something no child "should be asked to do", but in a new documentary about the princess, ‘Diana, 7 Days’, airing on the BBC on Sunday (27.08.17), he admitted being "very glad" he made the walk.
He also said he didn’t "have an opinion whether that was right or wrong".
But the princes admitted they couldn’t take it all in when they had to go outside of Queen Elizabeth’s Scottish residence, Balmoral, where they were holidaying at the time, to look at the floral tributes to their late mother shortly after her death in a Paris car crash.
William – who was 15 at the time – said: "There were quite a few flowers there and people.
"I remember looking at the flowers and the notes that were left and was very touched by it but none of it sunk in.
"All I cared about was that I had lost my mother and I didn’t want to be where I was."
"When we go out and do things like that and not completely breakdown you have to put on a bit of a game face.
"You have to be quite strong about it otherwise you are a walking mess. And so Harry and I, at that age, all we understood was the duty, family point."
Harry – who was 12 years old – added: "I don’t remember the service but I sure remember coming back in the car and stopping and getting out at the front gates to Balmoral.
"Looking back the last thing I wanted to do was read what other people were saying about our mother.
"Yes, it was amazing, it was incredibly moving to know but at that point I wasn’t there, I was still in shock."
Prince William’s fringe ‘safety blanket’
