If Prince Harry is going to do anything, it’s talk about mental health, grief and his mother. That’s been his theme now for the past decade. While writing Spare was a hugely important part of resetting narratives and creating his own historical record, it was also a therapeutic move for Harry, being able to write about his mother, his magical thinking after her death, and how he’s managed and mismanaged his mental health as an adult. So, no surprise, Harry was invited to host a MasterClass about grief and mental health. According to People Magazine, Harry was approached by MasterClass last year, and he filmed “Redefining Grief: Building Resilience Through Loss” in California over the summer with neuroscientist Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor. Some highlights from their conversation:

The move to Canada in late 2019 & early 2020: “Being in Canada, away from the stressful environment where presumably my body was just pumped full of adrenaline, within two or three days, I experienced this adrenaline crash, something that I’d never experienced before…It was as if I needed stress in order to get the adrenaline to make my brain function because I became useless around the house. I actually slipped into depression for about two weeks and I felt like I couldn’t function without adrenaline.”

Not being able to process the loss of his mother: “I didn’t cry when I was told my mom died, only at her burial, and then not again for nearly two decades. I was convinced that was strength, but it wasn’t. It was a 12-year-old boy with no permission to fall apart and no roadmap for how to heal. You would think I had the best help in the world. I’m a prince for God’s sake, but I was still grieving and didn’t have any place to put those feelings.”

Emotional numbness: “For 15, 20 years, when I was being asked, ‘Are you okay?’ My response was, ‘I’m fine.’ It was numbness, emotional shutdown. And without knowing it, adrenaline was pushing me, was driving me. It was the driving force of what took me to joining the military at the age of 20. It was the perfect distraction. I couldn’t really think about much else apart from the task at hand.”

Brain fog: O’Connor discusses how prolonged stress can affect the body, comparing the nervous system to parts of a car and cortisol, a hormone produced by the adrenal glands, to its fuel injection system. “The thing is, if you are a lead foot on the gas pedal all the time, pushing all that gas through your body, it’s not sustainable,” she explains. “What we know from research is that people who are under chronic stress, that cortisol eventually becomes depleted. And that means you’re foggy, right? It means you don’t perform very well. It means that you feel exhausted, even just getting up in the morning.” “The brain fog is something that I can really relate to as well,” Harry says.

Harry’s grief for his mother: “I’d spent so long emotionally numb, to a large extent, because I felt disloyal and guilty for the possibility of being happy and joyful without her,” he shares. “I felt like I had to be sad and I had to be emotionally numb in order to prove to her that I missed her…. But the reality is, what I discovered was actually that she just wanted me to be happy. And that was a huge mental shift for me. It freed me, and it gave me a whole different outlook on life. Everything I do, everything I put my energy towards, I hope that my mother will be proud about it. Trying to continue and protect her legacy, what I didn’t realize was the work that I ended up choosing, or the work that I ended up getting drawn in and attracted to, was so similar to the work that she was doing. With grief comes this, it’s not so much responsibility, but this carrying of the person that you’ve lost throughout your life. There is an element of carrying my mother in me that ultimately energizes me for the work that I do.”

There’s a particular portrait of Diana which he connects with: “I can actually get eye contact from her, and there’s a cheekiness in her smile… I just feel very connected to her,” Harry says of the photograph, taken by famed French photographer Patrick Demarchelier. “I find myself looking at her and wondering, what is she thinking about what I am doing right now? Even though I had photographs in my bedroom at school, I distinctly remember not thinking about my mother because thinking about something that sad was never gonna bring her back.”

[From People Magazine]

The part about his crash in late 2019 was news to me, but it makes a lot of sense. They felt like they were escaping by the skin of their teeth. I remember how bad it was for them in 2019 as well – that year was f–king cursed for them, and it was just a daily onslaught of hate, smears and outrage. They originally went to Canada for the holidays to get some breathing room and figure out their next steps. Imagine being in that trauma blender for years and then going to peaceful Canada and trying to figure out what to do. And poor Meghan too – she was going through her own trauma and dealing with it in her own way and trying to recover.

🆕 Prince Harry teams up with leading grief neuroscientist Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor for new MasterClass titled “Redefining Grief: Building Resilience Through Loss.”

“Everything I do, everything I put my energy towards, I hope that my mother would be proud about it,” he said. https://t.co/GQWkdLbuK7

— ChrisBaronSmith (@ChrisBaronSmit1) October 8, 2026

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.