The royal family has been dealing with a lot this year, with King Charles III announcing his cancer diagnosis in February and Kate Middleton revealing just months later that she, too, was undergoing treatment for cancer. Despite the circumstances, there seems to be no real sign of a truce between Prince Harry and his estranged family members. An insider weighed in on the ongoing saga, and they think what Harry saw his mother Princess Diana go through has a lot to do with his exit from the royal family.

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle famously stepped away from their royal duties in 2020, relocating to Los Angeles. Harry allegedly not only thinks his mother would approve of this move, but according to a source for OK! magazine, what happened to Princess Di was a big reason why the Duke and Duchess of Sussex chose to do it. The insider said:

Harry was scarred by what his mother went through, and when he saw the same thing happening to Meghan, he knew he must act. He’s certain his mother would have approved of him leaving the royal family. Diana had tried to do the same, and he thinks she would be proud of him and his new life.

If Prince Harry does, in fact, believe that moving to the United States might help Meghan Markle avoid what his mother endured — including but not limited to her 1997 death at the age of 36 — one can see why he might be willing to go to extreme lengths to do so, like being estranged from his family. As far as what Princess Diana would think of the move, Harry’s brother Prince William reportedly has a different line of thinking. The source continued:

He thinks their mother would be appalled by Harry abandoning his family. It would break her heart to see brother against brother.

Prince Harry did return to London to visit with his father following the king’s cancer diagnosis, though he refused to divulge any details of the meeting. While that’s a move in the right direction of reconciliation, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that the ice is thawing between the brothers, despite reports that Harry and Meghan reached out to Kate when she was in the hospital in January.

It’s apparently a tough time of year for the brothers, too, the insider said, as Princess Diana’s birthday approaches on July 1. According to the source:

Diana’s birthday is painful for Harry and William both. For Harry, he thinks about what could have been, and William is reminded of being without her from such a young age. The loss of their mother cuts deep.

It is, indeed, heartbreaking to think of all the things Diana has missed since the tragic car wreck that took her life in August 1997, especially in how it reportedly continues to affect her sons.

We’ll have to see if current circumstances are doing anything to heal the damage caused from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex relocating to America, as well as everything Harry said in his memoir Spare and the docuseries Harry & Meghan, which can be streamed with a Netflix subscription.