Jake Glaser said that his mother, AIDS crusader Elizabeth Glaser, was known as “often” to the Princess of Wales when she was with Prince Charles between 1993 and 1996.
In a piece published on People.com, Glaser said that the two grieved over each other “frequently” in 1993 and ’94, years when the then 33-year-old Diana and Charles were struggling with their marriage. Glaser said that he believes his mother “never recovered” from their interactions and that she died following an infection in 1996.
“The moment my mom learned she was getting the hook, she retreated into herself, but from all of us who love her,” Jake Glaser wrote. “Whatever happened between that year and the time she died: the death of a princess is the worst kind of bad news imaginable.”
Asked to elaborate on what he meant when he said “often,” Glaser told People magazine in an interview that he couldn’t recall but that he “was close to my mom.”
“Some people are emotionally drained at times from that experience,” he added.
Glaser and his brother, Jacob, said that they were at their mother’s side when she died from pneumonia brought on by AIDS.
“If it hadn’t been for my mom’s advocacy work I probably wouldn’t be here today with all of you,” Jake Glaser said. “She always cared about people who didn’t have a voice and people who didn’t have the resources to get the help they needed.”
Click for more from People.com.