Princess Diana's reunion with her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, while on a royal tour of Canada has gone viral, after footage captured by news cameras in Toronto in 1991 resurfaced on social-media platform TikTok.
The princess' relationship with her children was pulled into focus earlier this year, when Prince Harry published his record-breaking memoir, Spare. In the 410-page book, the prince recounted memories from his childhood spent with his mother and the events surrounding her death at the age of 36 in 1997, when Harry was just 12.
2022 marked the 25th anniversary of Diana's death, which occurred when a car she was traveling in through Paris crashed into a structural pillar of a road tunnel. The driver of the car was found to have consumed above the legal limit of alcohol at the time of the accident. The Mercedes was also being pursued at speed by paparazzi photographers.
The driver, Henri Paul; the princess; and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, all lost their lives as a result of the crash. Both Harry and Prince William paid tributes to their mother throughout 2022.
Posted to TikTok by user, @ladydianabelovedfans, on August 7, the new viral video shows the princes being reunited with their mother during a visit to Canada in 1991 with Prince Charles (now King Charles III).
Diana and Charles had spent an extended period in Canada while their sons traveled out to meet them at a later date aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia.
Captioned "How happy Princess Diana [was] when she meet her son," the video shows her excitedly embracing William and then Harry.
@ladydianabelovedfans How happy Princess Diana when she meet her son 🥰❤️ #princessofwales #princessdiana #dianaworld #ladydianaspencer #queenofpeopleshearts❤️ ♬ Video Games - Lana Del Rey
The footage has been widely used in the years since the princess' death to illustrate her love for her children. The clip also shows Diana's willingness to break the rigid formality of life in the royal family and outwardly show strong emotion.
Prince Harry spoke about his mother's hugs during a 2017 documentary in which he and his older brother gave rare interviews reflecting on their childhoods.
"She would just engulf you and squeeze you as tight as possible, and being as short as I was then, there was no escape. You were there for as long as she wanted to hold you," Harry said in Diana: Our Mother, Her Life and Legacy. "Even talking about it now, I can feel the hugs that she used to give us."
The viral TikTok video has received over 22,000 likes and 230 comments, many of which have praised the princess.
"Aww couldn't wait to see her boys, but still polite to all around her...miss her," wrote one user.
"Glad her boys have all these moments captured to watch with their children," posted another, with a third adding: "Precious Memories she loved and adored her children."
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
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James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more
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