It’s going to take a little adjusting now that Prince Harry has said bye bye to the royal life (though it sounds like he may have some regrets), so let’s remember the time he gave AIDS awareness a massive public boost while reminding everyone that he is indeed Princess Diana’s son.
Speaking of Prince Harry scandals, the GOAT team talk about the whole Megxit mess on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
Despite knowing about AIDS and HIV for decades, there’s still a stigma associated with the disease and self-testing, as well as a worrying lack of proper knowledge among the greater population.
In an attempt to raise awareness for AIDS and the importance of HIV testing, as well as helping to eradicate the stigma associated with the disease, Prince Harry decided to broadcast himself on social media taking a HIV test live on July 14, 2016.
Unlike the time where he didn’t want anyone reporting on what he was up to in Afghanistan, Prince Harry wanted to get as many eyeballs on his live HIV test as possible.
Not only was it the first ever British royal family Facebook live, but Prince Harry’s HIV test was something of a groundbreaking moment in the fight against AIDS and HIV. In the words of Prince Harry himself during his Facebook live broadcast: “Whether you’re a man, woman, gay, straight, black, white, even ginger; why wouldn’t you come in and get a test?”
In demonstrating how easy and painless it is to get tested, Prince Harry helped tear down the negative stigma of AIDS/HIV while contributing to a massive surge in HIV testing.
This huge moment was nearly matched when Prince Harry teamed up with Rihanna on World Aids Day and took HIV tests together in Barbados.
This history-making moment in the fight against AIDS/HIV from Prince Harry drew parallels to Princess Diana’s own groundbreaking AIDS moment back in the 1980s and 1990s.
Back then, the world was absolutely terrified of AIDS and it had become something of a bogeyman that was fed by a steady stream of misinformation and fearmongering, such as the mistaken belief the disease could be transmitted via physical contact.
However, Princess Diana sought to de-stigmatise AIDS/HIV and did a lot of great work to raise awareness about the disease. The moment that really cut through the aether was when she held hands with an AIDS patient in 1987 while not wearing any gloves.
With just a simple gesture of empathy, Princess Diana publicly debunked the commonly held thought that AIDS could be transmitted via touch and showed the world that AIDS patients are just people. As she said herself:
“HIV does not make people dangerous to know. You can shake their hands and give them a hug. Heaven knows they need it. What’s more, you can share their homes, their workplaces, and their playgrounds and toys.”
There’s something about seeing Prince Harry make such a big impact for AIDS/HIV patients decades after Princess Diana did something similar that gives everyone a bit of much-needed optimism (especially during these trying times), not to mention how it showed that he really is his mother’s son.
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