Prince Harry has said he never wanted to be a working royal after his mother, the late Princess Diana, died when he was a teenager.

Speaking at the InterEdge Summit at Melbourne Park on Thursday, he made the admission to Australian business leader and former politician Brendan Nelson.

‘After my mum died just before my 13th birthday – I was like: ‘I don’t want this job. I don’t want this role – wherever this is headed, I don’t like it,’ he said, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

‘It killed my mum, and I was very much against it, and I stuck my head in the sand for years and years.

‘Eventually I realised – well, hang on, if there was somebody else in this position, how would they be making the most of this platform and this ability and the resources that come with it to make a difference in the world?

‘And also, what would my mum want me to do? And that really changed my own perspective.’

Harry told the gathered attendees that he had felt ‘lost, betrayed, or completely powerless’ at points in his life.

‘When I was invited to speak at this summit, I wasn’t sure whether I was expected to speak as someone who, despite everything, has their s*** together,’ he said.

‘Or as someone who, despite what it may look like, actually doesn’t have his shit together.

‘But I was struck by something quite simple – that while my experiences may be unusual, the feelings that come with them are not. In my experience, loss is disorienting at any age.’

The Duke of Sussex also used his speech to call out social media companies, saying that people stop questioning and normalise unhealthy behaviour.

‘Nowhere is that more visible than in the digital world because many of the systems shaping our reality, our attention, our self-worth and our relationships were not built around human wellbeinh,’ he said.

‘Too many of these platforms are not designed with safety in mind… And we know these companies have the capability to understand who their users are.

‘They can target young people with extraordinary precision … but when it comes to protecting those same young people, we are told that it’s too difficult, too complex, it can’t be done.

‘That contradiction should concern all of us because if a platform is capable of targeting a child, it is surely capable of protecting them, and if it is not doing so, that is not a failure of technology. It is a failure of responsibility.’