A video of Princess Diana reprimanding an intrusive media member during a 1997 humanitarian visit to Angola has gone viral on TikTok.
The clip, showing a meeting between the princess and two victims of landmine explosions, has been viewed more than 3 million times on the video-sharing platform with over 300,000 likes after being uploaded by user "1ladyydianawales."
The short scene showing the princess pushing away the recording apparatus of an intruding media member during the meeting formed part of a much longer documentary titled Diary of a Princess which saw a camera crew follow Diana on her Red Cross visit to Angola, released as part of the BBC's Heart of the Matter series.
The clip's subtitles read "Princess Diana noticing the young lady is getting nervous," adding, "so she pushes the microphone away."
The program featured a specially recorded narration by Diana herself and was broadcast on February 11, 1997, just six months before her death at the age of 36 in a high-speed Paris car crash.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the princess's death and increasingly videos of Diana are being shared and going viral on social media platforms among a generation of users who were not alive during her lifetime.
Survey data from Statista from 2021 showed that 49 percent of TikTok users in the United States are under the age of 30 with 25 percent of those users between the ages of 10 and 19.
Diana's star appeal still holds strong in the U.S. with YouGov America polling the princess as the number one favorably viewed British royal, ahead of Queen Elizabeth II, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle.
Diana's visit to Angola in 1997 is most known today for the enduring image of her walking through a minefield during a visit with the Halo Trust, an organization dedicated to the eradication of landmines across the globe.
Prince Harry posed for a similar set of photographs when he visited the country in 2019 as part of a wider tour of South Africa with Meghan Markle and their son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.
Commenters on the viral TikTok video expressed praise for Diana for setting a firm boundary with members of the press, especially when she suspected those around her were being exploited.
"She is exactly who she was. Polite but direct, kind and gentle," one user said.
"She knew what it felt like and wanted to protect that woman from the same. She was incredible!" wrote a second user with another adding: "There will never ever be another Princess Diana. Such a compassionate and loving lady."
The princess continued her pioneering campaigning for the removal of landmines until the end of her life, undertaking a visit to Washington D.C. in June 1997 where she spoke on this important issue.
Speaking at the American Red Cross headquarters, Diana said in a speech on June 17, 1997:
"Having seen for myself the devastation that anti-personnel landmines cause, I am committed to supporting in whatever way I can the international campaign to outlaw these dreadful weapons."
As well as 2022 marking the 25th anniversary of the princess's tragic death, it also marks the 25th anniversary of her visit to Angola. In commemoration of this HALO Trust spokesperson Louise Vaughan told The Daily Mirror in January that Diana's visit shed crucial light on the problem of landmines.
"Once she took those footsteps across that minefield, the conversation changed forever," Vaughan said. "When she visited, it was dangerous. It was an act of incredible bravery that she went there, full-stop. What Diana did was make it impossible for any government, particularly the British government, not to support the ban. She wasn't responsible for the origin of the campaign to ban landmines, but she gave it a critical moment. Nobody could deny that the continuing production and use of landmines was abhorrent and had to change."
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
