As the second son of the heir to the throne, Prince Harry was never born to be king. But he earned the nickname “King of Hearts” during his official visit to South America last week, thanks to the easy way he related to people from all walks of life.
Following in the humanitarian footsteps of his late mother Princess Diana, who once said she’d like to be known as the “queen of people’s hearts”, Harry charmed crowds who turned out to see him in Brazil and Chile.
From dancing with disabled children at a daycare centre in Chile through to touring slums and talking to drug addicts in Brazil, the prince won praise for his gentle, caring manner and ability to strike up a rapport with people whose lives are very different to his own.
Like his mum, who broke with royal tradition to hug members of the public and would crouch down to make eye contact with children, Harry displayed his natural ease with the people he met. In Santiago, he delighted youngsters at a centre that cares for children with physical and mental disabilities by joining in an impromptu dance to Katy Perry’s Firework.
Like his mum Princess Diana, Harry has a natural ease with people.
He let several of the young girls kiss him, and when one of his aides gave him a tissue to remove a smudge of lipstick on his cheek, the prince joked, “I’ve kissed so many girls, I don’t know who it belongs to!”
Harry sat on the floor to play with some of the children and seemed impressed with the stories he heard about how their lives had changed since they began attending the centre in one of Santiago’s poorest suburbs.
An English volunteer who works at the centre said, “You could tell he was genuinely moved. You could see it in his face when he was with the children.”
Earlier in the tour, Harry had been reduced to tears while meeting Brazilian children who had lost a parent to drugs, violence or prison. During the visit to a project in Diadema, near Sao Paolo, that helps underprivileged kids, he became visibly upset and later said, “I was completely overwhelmed and shocked.”
“I’ve never blubbed in public as far as I can remember but I was pretty damn close.”
Harry said he wanted to share his experience of losing his mum after being told about two sisters who were being cared for by their grandmother because their mother had been murdered and their drug-dealing father was in jail.
“There are two little girls and just looking at them I wanted to talk about my own experiences. But there is no point because it is just so far removed.”
The prince also seemed shocked by the stories he heard from drug addicts in Sao Paolo’s most notorious slum, which is known as Crackland. One man, who got his first-ever job as a cleaner at 34, told Harry he had started smoking crack at eight years old.
Harry won hearts wherever he went during his official visit to South America.
Although a “clean-up operation” had been launched before the prince arrived, to move on addicts who live on the streets, drug users still congregated outside a treatment centre, and one lit a crack pipe as Harry walked past. But Harry was not threatened – at one point, he even hugged a policeman who works in Crackland.
After his four days in Brazil, Harry took the unusual step of posting a videotaped thank you message on the British monarchy’s YouTube site.
In the video, recorded on a phone, the prince spoke without notes. “From visiting hospitals to visiting the rainforest, to visiting Diadema, the whole trip has been absolutely amazing,” he said. “Meeting all the children, the next generation of footballers, it has really struck home. I feel very, very moved to have spent the last four days here with such amazing, passionate people in such a beautiful country.”
A couple of days later, it was a Chilean family thanking Harry after he fixed their TV just in time for them to watch Chile vs Brazil in the football World Cup. Harry was touring a slum on the outskirts of Valparaiso when he noticed the TV in a shack belonging to Coca Perez wasn’t working properly.
“He looked at it and started to fiddle with the cable,” says Coca. “He managed to get it working so we could watch Chile play Brazil later. Now I can tell everyone that Prince Harry is my TV repairman.”
There had been some criticism by media commentators about the timing of Harry’s trip because it meant he could go to some of the World Cup games. But any suggestion that he was only in South America to see the football was quickly dismissed by the way he threw himself wholeheartedly into the visit.
“He is a fantastic ambassador for the royal family and has made a lasting impression because he is so genuinely compassionate and will try anything,” says one royal watcher. “His mother would be proud.”
