How Prince William's, Princess Diana's Roles Were Heartbreakingly Reversed Amid Prince Charles’ Cheating

Prince William's and Princess Diana’s roles were reversed during the fallout of the late royal and Prince Charles’ marriage. Even though Princess Diana was the mom and was much older than her son, Prince William found himself taking care of his mother.

In the YouTube documentary “Prince William At Thirty,” BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond said that the Duke of Cambridge took on a lot of responsibilities as a kid because he was the eldest son of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Whenever he would hear his mom cry, the dad of three would come up to Princess Diana and tell her that everything will be alright.

“It was all the wrong way around for William,” she said. “He was having to comfort his mother when she should have been looking after him — he was just a little boy,” she added.

Ken Wharfe, Princess Diana’s former protection officer, echoed Bond’s statement by saying that the Duke of Cambridge and Princess Diana’s relationship was definitely reversed. “Diana did put a lot of responsibility on William’s shoulders as someone to comfort and to talk to and to be with,” he said.

Since Kate Middleton’s husband was two years older than Prince Harry, he was the one who saw and understood his parents’ breakdowns and fights. He also assumed the role of the comforter in their family.

“William was just about to enter those very difficult teenage years and had to do so with the backdrop of his parents’ marriage disintegrating in the most publicly awful way,” royal author Katie Nicholl said. And to make things worse, Prince Charles and Princess Diana still had to attend royal engagements together with their two sons even though they were on the verge of separation.

Former royal press officer Dickie Arbiter said that it was noticeable how the body language between the Prince and Princess of Wales was non-existent. “It was so frosty you could have driven an ice-breaker between the two of them and not cracked the ice,” he said.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced their separation in 1992. They divorced four years later.