Last night the highly-anticipated documentary, Prince Harry In Africa, debuted on ITV. Focusing upon the young royal’s work in Lesotho, the show follows the work of the prince’s charity Sentebale. And the documentary revealed the reason Harry has become renowned for his philanthropic endeavours.
The prince told ITV’s Tom Bradby, "I wanted to do something to make my mother proud. To a certain extent there was a lot of unfinished business - work that my mother never completed."
He revealed that it was during his gap year in Lesotho that he knew he wanted to make a real difference in the world.
He remembered thinking at the time: "I want to do something really constructive with my life. I need to make something of my life."
The 32-year-old also spoke openly about his mother’s death. Princess Diana passed away in 1997 when Harry was just 12-years-old.
He admitted, "I never really dealt with what had happened. It was a lot of buried emotion. For a huge part of my life I didn’t really want to think about it."
He continued: "I now view life very differently from what it used to be. I used to bury my head in the sand, and let everything around you tear you to pieces."
Yet the prince has since strived to follow in his mother’s charitable footsteps. Princess Diana was renowned for her AIDs activism and her son has spent the past few years raising awareness on the epidemic.
Back in July 2016, Harry became the first royal to Facebook Live a HIV test and the video, which received over two million views, led to a surge in those getting tested.
Harry's charity Sentebale aims to give children and young people affected by the disease support through access to education, care and psychosocial services. He first founded the charity ten years ago with the help of Prince Seeiso of Lesotho as the African country has the world’s second highest prevalence of HIV.
He told ITV, "The fact that I’ve managed to keep Sentebale going... for the last 10, 11 years has been fantastic because now everything else I’m involved with makes sense to me."
He added: "And I’m just getting started."