On the night of August 30, 1997, Princess Diana placed a call from Paris to her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, who were enjoying a carefree summer at Balmoral Castle. For William, then just 15, it was a routine check-in with his mother, filled with her characteristic warmth but rushed by the distractions of youth. Neither he nor Harry, aged 12, could have known that those fleeting minutes would be their last conversation with the mother they adored. The tragic car crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel hours later claimed Diana’s life, leaving behind a legacy of love and a poignant, incomplete goodbye that continues to haunt her eldest son.

The call took place against the backdrop of a typical royal summer. William and Harry were at Balmoral, the Scottish estate beloved by their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, playing with their cousins, Peter and Zara Phillips. Diana, in Paris with Dodi Al Fayed, was navigating a storm of media attention but eager to reconnect with her boys. Having been apart for nearly a month due to her divorce from Prince Charles, she looked forward to their planned reunion in London the next day. The call, lasting about five minutes, was meant to bridge that distance, but its brevity would become a lifelong regret for William.

In the 2017 documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, William shared the weight of that moment. “Harry and I were in a desperate rush to say ‘goodbye, see you later, can I go off?’” he recalled, describing how he and his brother, caught up in games with their cousins, hurried through the conversation. “If I’d known what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have been so blasé about it,” he admitted. The memory of that rushed farewell, marked by a casual “see you later,” lingers heavily, a reminder of the fragility of life and the words left unsaid.

Diana’s voice, warm and familiar, carried the love she always poured into her sons. Royal reporter Richard Kay, one of her closest confidants, noted in a 2021 documentary that Diana was in high spirits that night, excited to return to London and see William and Harry. Though Kay’s conversation with her followed the call to her sons, it underscored her focus on them. William has kept the specifics of their exchange private, saying only, “I do,” when asked if he remembers what she said, his tone heavy with emotion. Harry, too, expressed deep regret, saying, “I can’t really necessarily remember what I said, but all I do remember is probably regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was.”

The tragedy of that night unfolded swiftly. Diana, Dodi Al Fayed, and driver Henri Paul perished in the crash, with bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones as the sole survivor. For William and Harry, the news shattered the carefree joy of their Balmoral holiday. William later described the call as his “very last memory” of his mother, a moment that stood in stark contrast to the laughter of that day. Harry, grappling with the public’s overwhelming grief, wondered why strangers mourned more visibly than he did, a reflection of the complex emotions of a child processing such a loss.

The brevity of the call—described by William as a “truncated five-minute phone call”—became a symbol of missed opportunities. For a teenager, eager to return to play, the rush to hang up was natural, but the realization that he could have said more has stayed with him. “There’s not a day that William and I don’t wish that she was still around,” he told journalists in 2017. The pain of that incomplete goodbye resonates universally, touching anyone who has lost someone unexpectedly, left with words they wish they had spoken.

Diana’s presence endures through her sons’ efforts to honor her legacy. William, now the Prince of Wales, shares stories of “Granny Diana” with his children, George, Charlotte, and Louis, ensuring they know the grandmother who would have “loved them to bits.” Harry has recalled her playful spirit, from smuggling sweets to sending cheeky cards, preserving her warmth for his own children. Both brothers channel her compassion into their work—William through homelessness initiatives and Harry via the Invictus Games—reflecting the causes she championed.

The call’s significance was dramatized in The Crown, though its portrayal stretched the truth, imagining a longer discussion about William’s hunting and Diana’s relationship with Dodi. In reality, the conversation was brief, focused on a mother’s longing to see her sons. Richard Kay’s account confirms Diana’s excitement for their reunion, making her loss all the more heartbreaking.

For William, now 43 and a father, the memory of that call remains a bittersweet echo. It’s a reminder of a love that shaped him and a goodbye that was never complete. As he navigates his role as a future king, he carries Diana’s lessons of empathy and duty, ensuring her voice—heard one last time from Paris—continues to guide him. The story of that call, simple yet profound, speaks to the universal ache of loss, a moment frozen in time that no amount of years can fully heal.