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A video clip of Prince William describing the enduring "shock" he feels of the death of his mother Princess Diana two decades on from her death has gone viral after being uploaded to social media website TikTok.
Recorded as part of a 2017 documentary titled Mind Over Marathon, which explored the mental health challenges tackled by participants in the London endurance run, the clip shows William responding to a plea for advice on how to help young children cope with the loss of a parent.
In the clip, 39-year-old marathon participant Rhian Burke, a mother-of-two who had recently lost her husband, asks the prince: "Obviously you were a little bit older than my children but I obviously worry about them growing up...they'll be OK, won't they?"
To this the prince offered an answer drawn on his own experience having lost his mother in a high-speed Paris car crash alongside her then-boyfriend Dodi Fayed, when he was 15.
"They'll be absolutely fine," he told Burke. "With a mom like you, they'll be absolutely fine. I promise it's true, they will.
"Because you're aware of all this, you're already a step ahead of what could happen. You try and understand your emotions a lot more than probably someone who's just lived life without any issues, and that's quite critical.
"It's explaining to them what those emotions mean, why they feel like they do. Because once you start rationalising a little bit and and you understand OK, so I'm really angry or I'm really down or I'm really upset about something, then you can kind of relativize it and sort of deal with it."
The key experience that William referenced was the blunt "shock" of losing a parent which he recounted has stayed with him two decades on. The year the documentary was filmed, 2017, marked the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana's death. This year, 2022, marks the 25th.
"Like you said, the shock is the biggest thing," he said.
"I still feel, 20 years later about my mother, I still have shock within me. You know, 20 years later. People go 'shock can't last that long' but it does. You never get over it. It is such an unbelievably big moment in your life that it never leaves you. You just learn to deal with it."
Speaking to documentary host Nick Knowles after her conversation with the prince, Burke spoke of her motivation to ask her question, saying: "It's something I've been thinking about a lot over the last few years because you seen them [Princes William and Harry] out there in the public eye, happy and getting on with life. It just made me want to know will my kids be all right?"
The clip has been viewed more than 600,000 times since it was uploaded to TikTok by user livvzeegs and gained in excess of 53,000 likes.
Commenters on the video have praised William for his measured response and processing of his own grief in his conversation with Burke.
"Prince William absolute credit to the royal family, such a top guy," wrote one user.
"He's absolutely right, it doesn't go away, you learn to deal with it better. he is such a honest caring person," wrote another, with a further poster adding: "William is a loving, caring person like his mother, and even though he lost her at such a young age, he learned a great deal from her."
The prince has spoken in the years since about his mental health experiences having suffered a loss at a young age, in an effort to help others.
In May, William referenced his mother and the grief he lives with during the unveiling of a memorial garden to the victims of the 2017 Manchester arena bombing.
"As someone who lives with his own grief, I also know that what often matters most to the bereaved is that those we have lost are not forgotten," he said.
"There is comfort in remembering. In acknowledging that, while taken horribly soon, they lived. They changed our lives. They were loved, and they are loved."
Though the 25th anniversary of Princess Diana's death was not marked by an official ceremony on August 31, both Princes William and Harry have paid a number of tributes to their mother throughout the year.
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About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more