Prince Harry and Queen Letizia sharing a somber moment during a state visit to Britain by the Spanish Monarchy has gone viral on TikTok.
The Duke of Sussex and the Spanish queen both celebrated their birthdays on Sunday, when Harry turned 40 and Letizia 52.
They met on July 13, 2017, when the prince accompanied Letizia and her husband King Felipe to Westminster Abbey in London to lay a wreath at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior.
It was an emotional time for Harry as it was around six weeks before the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana's death and he was part way through a series of exclusive interviews in which he shared his grief at losing his mother.
A clip of the moment they gathered to lay the wreath has gone viral on TikTok where it was liked more than 16,000 times and viewed 127,000 times.
The post, published Sunday, carried the caption: "Today Queen Letizia and Prince Harry celebrate their birthdays."
It was the first time Harry had taken part in an official duty during a state visit, and also came at a time of huge emotional upheaval as he spent months talking publicly about his mother's life and death for the first time.
The abbey was where Diana's funeral had been held 20 years earlier and Harry at the time had caused worldwide headlines just weeks earlier by telling Newsweek he should not have been asked to walk behind her coffin as a 12-year-old boy.
"My mother had just died, and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television," Harry said.
"I don't think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don't think it would happen today."
The meeting with Letizia at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior came a week before the release of the ITV documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, in which Harry and Prince William opened up about losing their mother.
Harry was seen on-screen recalling the last time he ever spoke to the princess, during a telephone call shortly before her death in a Paris car crash.
"I can't really, necessarily, remember what I said," Harry recalled. "But all I do remember is probably, you know, regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was.
"And if I'd known that was the last time I was going to speak to my mother—the things I would have said to her."
A month later came the BBC's Diana, 7 Days in which he discussed how King Charles III was the person who told him his mother was dead.
"One of the hardest things for a parent to have to do is to tell your children that your other parent has died," Harry said.
"How you deal with that? I don't know. But you know, he was there for us. He was the one out of two left, and he tried to do his best and to make sure that we were protected and looked after," Harry said of Charles. "But you know, he was going through the same grieving process as well."
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
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