Prince William Revealed the Adorable Nickname Princess Diana Gave Him

• In a resurfaced 2007 interview with NBC, Prince William revealed mom Princess Diana (opens in new tab) gave him an extremely cute nickname as a child.
• Diana called her eldest son "wombat" after the royals visited Australia—and the nickname stuck.
• "I can’t get rid of it now," William said.

Here is a sweet royal anecdote: Prince William's late mom, Princess Diana (opens in new tab), gave him a nickname when he was a kid, and said nickname has held firm in the many years since. As the Daily Express reports (opens in new tab), William revealed the nickname in a recently resurfaced interview with NBC back in 2007. So what, exactly, did Diana call her son? "Wombat."

"When we went to Australia with our parents, and the wombat, you know, that’s the local animal, so I just basically got called that, not because I look like a wombat, or maybe I do," William said in 2007. "I can’t get rid of it now. It began when I was two." Delightful!

In a BBC documentary that aired in May, Football, Prince William and our Mental Health, William spoke about the trauma of losing his mother (opens in new tab) at a young age—and revisiting those emotions after he became a father. Speaking to former soccer player Marvin Sordell, who shared his own experience of becoming a parent after growing up without his father, William said, "I think when you’ve been through something traumatic in life... my mother dying when I was younger, the emotions come back, in leaps and bounds."

"Having children is the biggest life-changing moment, it really is," the Duke continued. "It’s one of the most amazing moments of life, but it’s also one of the scariest."

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