Nearly suffered a breakdown after his mother, Princess Diana, died in 1997

Prince Harry has broken with the royal tradition of maintaining silence about mental health issues by speaking candidly about his severe emotional problems following the death of his mother, Princess Diana.

The 32-year-old prince told The Daily Telegraph in an interview published on Monday that he had nearly suffered a breakdown since his mother’s 1997 death in a car crash and had needed counselling in his late 20s.

It was by far the most frank interview of Harry’s life, and gives the public its first glimpse of the inner turmoil he suffered growing up in the public eye after losing his mother when he was only 12.

Tumultous time

“My way of dealing with it was sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help?” he said of his teens and 20s. This was a period in which he embarked on a successful military career but also occasionally attracted unwanted headlines, notably for being photographed playing “strip billiards” in Las Vegas.

In the interview, Harry said he had at times felt “on the verge of punching someone” and had taken up boxing as an outlet for the aggression he felt.

“All of a sudden, all of this grief that I have never processed started to come to the forefront and I was like, there is actually a lot of stuff here that I need to deal with,” he said.