Prince Harry Takes After His Mom Princess Diana During Visit With Wounded Nigerian Soldier
"I got chills seeing Harry like this, the spitting image of Diana."
The Duke of Sussex is taking after his mother, the late Princess Diana, while visiting wounded soldiers in Nigeria.
On Friday, May 10, Prince Harry visited the Nigerian Army Reference Hospital Kaduna. During the visit, he met with a wounded Nigerian soldier—a heartfelt and moving encounter that reminded many royal fans of the way Princess Diana conducted herself during a number of her royal visits with veterans, soldiers, as well as the sick, wounded and less fortunate.
While at Private Habu Sadiq, the Duke of Sussex took the soldier's hand before asking him: "Are they helping you? Are you feeling better?" The moment was captured on video by People's chief foreign correspondent, Simon Perry, who posted the exchange on Instagram.
"Get better, be strong," Prince Harry said to the wounded soldier, who People reports "had suffered from impaired eyesight due to a blast."
"He’s so kind," one royal fan commented on Perry's Instagram post. "Like his mother."
"I got chills seeing Harry like this, the spitting image of Diana. Just as kind, caring, and with so much love for helping others," another fan posted.
"Diana x2," another user posted in the comment section.
In a 2017 interview with People, Princess Diana's brother Charles Spencer described his late sister's hands-on approach during royal visits, in which she reportedly relied on the power of human touch to combat stigma, shame, judgment and stereotypes.
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"She was not really a gloves person,” he told the publication at the time. "She was very real and very about human contact. And what really mattered that day was to get across a very clear message that: ‘I’m going to touch this gentleman—and you can all exist in a community with people who are suffering, and we must help.”
Prince Harry is visiting the country of Nigeria alongside his wife, Meghan Markle, as part of the ongoing 10-year anniversary celebrations for the Duke of Sussex's Invictus Games.
To date, the pair have visited the Lightway Academy and met with the country's Chief of Defense Staff, according to ABC News, as well as a visit to Unconquered—a charity organization which works in collaboration with the Invictus Games Foundation.
The couple are reportedly splitting their time between Abuja and Lagos during their trip.
Recently, Meghan Markle discovered that she is 43% Nigerian, making the couple's recent visit to the country all the more special.
"Now, I’m not saying we play favorites in our home, but since my wife discovered she is of Nigerian descent, it’s likely to get a little bit more competitive this year," Prince Harry joked in 2023, when the country first participated in the Invictus Games.
Danielle Campoamor is Marie Claire's weekend editor covering all things news, celebrity, politics, culture, live events, and more. In addition, she is an award-winning freelance writer and former NBC journalist with over a decade of digital media experience covering mental health, reproductive justice, abortion access, maternal mortality, gun violence, climate change, politics, celebrity news, culture, online trends, wellness, gender-based violence and other feminist issues. You can find her work in The New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, New York Magazine, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, TODAY, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, InStyle, Playboy, Teen Vogue, Glamour, The Daily Beast, Mother Jones, Prism, Newsweek, Slate, HuffPost and more. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and their two feral sons. When she is not writing, editing or doom scrolling she enjoys reading, cooking, debating current events and politics, traveling to Seattle to see her dear friends and losing Pokémon battles against her ruthless offspring. You can find her on X, Instagram, Threads, Facebook and all the places.
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