Prince Harry’s memory of his final moments with Queen Elizabeth II has gone viral after footage from a personal interview given in 2023 resurfaced on TikTok.

Harry has spoken about his relationship with his late grandmother on several occasions since her death, most expansively in his memoir, Spare, which was released last year and became the fastest selling non-fiction book in history.

The prince was visiting Britain with wife, Meghan Markle, at the time of the queen’s death in September 2022, however, he wasn’t with the monarch, who was staying at her Scottish castle on the Balmoral estate.

When news of her failing health was relayed to him, Harry chartered a plane to fly him from England to Scotland.

The prince subsequently revealed that he learned his grandmother had died via a news site on his phone, before he saw any personal message from his family.
From the airport in Aberdeen, Harry drove to Balmoral by car, where he arrived at the castle to be greeted by his aunt, Queen Elizabeth’s only daughter, Princess Anne.

The prince spoke about the scene he found at the castle, as well as time he spent with the late queen, in an interview given to Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes in January 2023, promoting his memoir.

Uploaded to TikTok by user, joshrop, on March 14, footage from this has been edited together with images of the royal and his grandmother, which has subsequently gone viral.

“My aunt was there to greet me,” he said of his arrival at Balmoral. “She asked me if I wanted to see her [the queen]. I thought about it for about five seconds, thinking ‘is this a good idea?’ And I was like, ‘you know what, you can do this, you need to say goodbye.’ So I went upstairs, took my jacket off and walked in and just spent some time with her alone.”

The video has been viewed over 230,000 times on the social media site and gained in excess of 13,000 likes and 140 comments, many of which praised Harry and his relationship with the queen.

“He was her favorite for a reason 💜,” wrote one TikTok user.

“That is one thing I can say about Queen Elizabeth. She absolutely adored her grandchildren,” posted another, with a further comment reading: “You can just tell he loves being around his family it’s not about money or royalty for him just simple nature 💖.”

The prince opened up further about his visit to Balmoral after his grandmother’s death in his memoir, and how he had regretted not being able to spend similar time with his mother after she died in 1997.

“She [Anne] asked if I wanted to see Granny,” he wrote. “She led me upstairs, to Granny’s bedroom. I braced myself, went in.

“The room was dimly lit, unfamiliar—I’d been inside it only once in my life. I moved ahead uncertainly, and there she was. I stood, frozen, staring. I stared and stared. It was difficult, but I kept on, thinking how I’d regretted not seeing my mother at the end. Years of lamenting that lack of proof, postponing my grief for want of proof. Now I thought: Proof. Careful what you wish for.”

In the aftermath of Queen Elizabeth’s death, her entire extended family came together to attend her state funeral at Westminster Abbey and committal at St George’s Chapel, in Windsor.

Harry attended alongside Meghan, and was reunited with Prince William and Kate Middleton for the services.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek’s royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek’s The Royals Facebook page.