Paul Burrell: It’s heartbreaking Princes Diana won’t ever meet her grandchildren

Paul Burrell thinks its “heartbreaking” that Princess Diana won’t ever get to meet her grandchildren.

The 62-year-old former royal butler – who worked for the Princess of Wales for 10 years – insists if Diana was still alive her grandkids “would have been her world”.

Diana’s oldest son Prince William, 39, and his wife Duchess Catherine have three children, Prince George, seven, Princess Charlotte, six, and Prince Louis, three, and her other son Prince Harry and his spouse Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, have two children, Archie, two, and newborn daughter Lilibet.

Speaking to the new issue of Closer magazine, Paul said: “It’s heartbreaking to think of Diana missing out on meeting her grandchildren. They would have been her world. She would have absolutely adored every single one of them, especially Charlotte as she seems so feisty and strong-willed.

“The grandchildren are all different and with (Prince Harry’s children) Archie and Lilibet growing up in America they will grow in different ways. Of course, George is heir to the throne but Diana would have treated every one of them the same.”

And Paul suggests that despite Diana’s youngest son, Harry, 36, stepping away from the British royal family to live in the US with his family it is not a move that The People’s Princess – who tragically died in a Paris car crash in 1997 at the age of 36 – would have made herself.

He said: “Diana loved America and was looking at a place in Malibu before she died. She loved it for the freedom it could give her, of course she would still be well known, but she’d have more privacy. She’d have loved for the boys to spend more time there, with the amazing weather. She shared the same desire as Harry to escape and enjoy a freedom they didn’t have in the UK.

“But California would never have become her permanent home – it would have been a part-time home. She loved Britain and she really understood the monarchy and her place in it, even though she was no longer married to (Prince) Charles. She wasn’t interested in the glitz and glamour of LA, she only wanted to be on a red carpet if her being at the event was doing some good and raising awareness, not just for the sake of it or the fame. And family always comes first, so she’d never have permanently moved so far across the Atlantic and been away from her sons or grandchildren. Family would have been her total priority, so that’s where she and Harry differ.”