Royal Live:Kate Beckinsale says she can relate to Prince William and Prince Harry, because she lost her father at a young age

Kate Beckinsale says she can relate to Prince William and Prince Harry, because she lost her father at a young age.

The 48-year-old actress was just five when her father Richard, who was known for his role as Lennie Godber in Porridge, died of a heart attack in his sleep aged 31 in 1979.

And she remembers feeling empathy for William and Harry, who were 15 and 12 respectively, when their mother, Princess Diana, died in a car crash in 1997.

Speaking on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Kate said: ‘I remember when their mother died, I was in New York, and seeing them in the context of other people sort of grieving for somebody they didn’t know… I thought, “Oh my God, I really know what that feels like”

A cataclysmic event like that puts everything into a real sharp focus.’It was hard at the very, very beginning because it did feel like you were having this very personal, horrible crisis — and so was everybody else, but you didn’t know them.

She continued: ‘People would talk about how terrible they felt that they had lost him, but then say, “Oh, but you probably don’t remember anything, do you, because you were a child.” That would really upset me as a child. I found that really difficult.

‘But then the person you’re sharing it with is saying, “You have less right to this than I do,” which is really odd.