Prince Harry Wants to Make Princess Diana

by CORINNE HELLER |

It's been more than 18 years since the tragic death of Princess Diana and her children, Prince Harry and Prince William, are determined to carry on her legacy.

Diana, who was known for her humanitarian work worldwide, died in a car accident in Paris in 1997 when Harry was 12 and William was 15.

"All I want to do is make my mother incredibly proud," Harry, 31, told People in comments posted Wednesday. "That's all I've ever wanted to do."

"When she died, there was a gaping hole, not just for us but also for a huge amount of people across the world," he added. "If I can try and fill a very small part of that, then job done. I will have to, in a good way, spend the rest of my life trying to fill that void as much as possible. And so will William."
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The prince made his comments at Kensington Palace just before he left for the 2016 Invictus Games in Orlando, which begin on May 8. Harry is a royal patron of the annual Paralympic-style sporting event for ill and wounded military servicemen and women and veterans from around the world. Both he and his brother work with many charities and humanitarian initiatives.

"I hope that a lot of my mother's talents are shown in a lot of the work that I do," Harry told Good Morning America in March.

In 2006, Harry co-founded the Sentebale organization in African kingdom of Lesotho. The group aims to help local children in need, including thousands affected by HIV and AIDS. Diana was known for her work to help promote HIV/AIDS awareness and made headlines when she was photographed meeting and even embracing patients, which many considered shocking at the time, as people were not as educated about the disease.

Last December, Harry visited a hospital for HIV patients that the princess had supported and highlighted how his mother helped break the stigma around the illness when she kissed an AIDS patient there, BBC News reported.

"I enjoy what I do. But I don't do things because I feel as though my mother would want me to do them," Harry told People. "I know I've got a lot of my mother in me. I am doing a lot of things that she would probably do."

Like Diana, William, 33, supports the organization Centrepoint, which helps homeless youth, and the Child Bereavement U.K., a charity his mother helped launch in 1994. The group supports families when a child dies or is dying, or when a child is facing bereavement.

"Twenty-one years ago last month, my mother attended the launch of the Child Bereavement Charity," William told reporters in October. "Fifteen years later, I was honored to be invited to become Patron of Child Bereavement UK to continue my mother's commitment to a charity which is very dear to me."

"What my mother recognized back then, and what I understand now, is that grief is the most painful experience that any child or parent can endure," he said. "As a father to two young children myself, I now appreciate it all the more."