Katie Couric recalls the moment Princess Diana asked her for parenting advice

• Princess Diana once asked Katie Couric for parenting advice, the veteran journalist has revealed.
• Couric said Diana once asked how she kept her children from "watching too much telly."

When Katie Couric first met Princess Diana, she was struck by her glowing beauty and "girlish charm."

But when they actually began to talk, Couric learned that Princess Diana had some very ordinary parenting struggles - like children who watch too much television.

Couric details the time she gave Diana advice in her new memoir, "Going There," which was released on Tuesday.

The veteran TV journalist met Princess Diana during a June 1996 luncheon for breast cancer research at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.

​​Couric sat next to Diana, who she recalled was "glowing in a sleeveless cream-colored dress with a single strand of pearls" and "still looking like the rosy-cheeked, bashful, part-time kindergarten teacher Prince Charles introduced to the world when she was just 19."

"At one point she turned to me and said, 'I like your lipstick,' which took me by surprise," Couric continued. "I was flattered that she'd noticed."

Couric said the princess then asked her for some advice.

"How do you keep your children from watching too much telly?" she recalled Diana asking. "I'm having a terrible time with William and Harry."

Prince William and Prince Harry were 13 and 11 years old at the time. Couric said she told Princess Diana to "hide the remote."

Couric later asked Diana if she was excited to go home after the US trip.

"I would be, but I'm going home to an empty house," replied the princess, who was finalizing her divorce from Prince Charles at the time.

Couric said she was struck by Diana's "openness" and "sensed a deep sadness."

"At the time, I had no idea how miserable she really was," she added.

Fifteen months later, Couric would be covering Diana's funeral live from London.

And the legendary "Today" host revealed that she broke down in tears when she saw what Prince Harry had left on top of his mother's casket: a single envelope with the word "Mummy" written across it.

"I realized that what I was seeing was not the passing of the most famous woman in the world," Couric wrote. "It was two boys who'd lost a parent."