The Deeply Personal Reason Katie Couric Cried At Princess Diana's Funeral

Katie Couric is making no secret about the impact that Princess Diana had on her. In the news anchor's new memoir, "Going There," Couric opened up about the time she met Diana (via Yahoo). Couric revealed that she and the royal met at a luncheon to raise funds for breast cancer research in 1996, just months before Diana's tragic death. The two women were seated next to one another at the event and eventually struck up a conversation. Couric says that she and Diana talked about parenthood and that the Princess of Wales even asked her for some parenting advice regarding her sons Prince William and Prince Harry. "How do you keep your children from watching too much telly?" Diana reportedly asked the TV personality. "I'm having a terrible time with William and Harry." Couric wrote in her book that she simply told Diana to "hide the remote" from her children.

Couric also confessed that she saw a sadder side of Diana when she asked the princess if she was happy to be headed home to London, to which Diana reportedly responded that she would be happy if she weren't "going home to an empty house," following her split from husband Prince Charles.

Now, Couric is also revealing how Diana's death the following year opened up an emotional floodgate for her.

When Princess Diana tragically died in a car accident in 1997, Katie Couric was one of the news anchors sent to the UK to cover her death and funeral. In her new book, "Going There," Couric reveals how hard it was to watch the funeral procession, and why it struck a very personal chord in her own life, per Insider. "The casket, laden with lilies, had a simple white card on top that said 'Mummy' — handwritten and placed there by Harry," Couric wrote in the memoir. "Mourners wailed at the sight of the princes walking behind the casket, heads bowed." At the time, Couric's husband, Jay Monahan had been diagnosed with colon cancer. He died a year later.

"I realized that what I was seeing was not the passing of the most famous woman in the world," Couric continued. "It was two boys who'd lost a parent. And I thought of my girls," Couric admitted. The anchor then says she broke into tears and told her colleague Tom Brokaw that she was having a "really hard time." Brokaw was said to understand Couric's struggle and the control cut the camera away from her as she composed herself.

For Couric, she was not only watching the world mourn a beloved figure, but also seeing the damage death can do to a family. Sadly, she can now understand that feeling and is telling her story inside the pages of her memoir.