Rare resurfaced video footage of Princess Diana being heckled during a 1995 awards dinner in New York has gone viral after being uploaded to social media platform TikTok.

The video, uploaded by user the.royal.watcher, has been viewed nearly half a million times, gaining 16,000 likes in under 24 hours.

The little known clip shows the princess calmly silence the heckler who appeared to question the royal’s devotion to her children, Princes William and Harry.

The incident took place at the New York Hilton during a diner held by the United Cerebral Palsy charity that was presenting Diana with its humanitarian of the year award for 1995. While accepting her award and delivering a speech, she was interrupted by a woman among the dinner guests.

While praising the parents of sick children, the princess said: “I think of the parents who this very night are standing around a hospital bed not knowing if their child will wake in the morning. They are anxious, they are tired, yet they seem to possess a never ending supply of compassion for their child.”

At this, the heckler shouted toward the stage “Where are YOUR children Diana?”

Apparently unfazed by the interruption, the cool, collected royal looked up from her notes to respond: “At school.”

According to a Daily Mirror report from the time, the heckler was a middle-aged woman wearing a white blouse, who refused to identify herself to journalists covering the event.

“I don’t like being lectured on humanity. I have never met the princess, I don’t know her but I didn’t like what she was saying,” the woman is reported to have said.

Donald Trump was also a guest at the dinner with his then-wife Marla Maples, and told the newspaper that he was “ashamed” to have seen the royal treated in such a way.

The time of the awards dinner, December 11, 1995, was a particularly difficult period in Diana’s personal life.

Only weeks before, on November 20, the royal’s bombshell interview with Martin Bashir for BBC’s Panorama was broadcast, a move which blindsided Buckingham Palace and members of the royal family.

The revealing interview saw Diana discuss for the first time publicly her mental health struggles, her doubts as to whether Prince Charles would make a good king and the infamous statement that “there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” in reference to Camilla Parker Bowles.

Though the British public appeared to back the princess against the prince, as a result of the broadcast, she faced a heavy onslaught of criticism over the disclosures made and the nature in which she did it.

One of the elements that Diana was criticized for was her inclusion of personal details relating to Prince William, including the conversation she had with him regarding his father’s affair following Charles’ own 1994 interview in which he admitted to committing adultery.

It was reported that shortly after the interview’s broadcast, Queen Elizabeth II wrote to both Diana and Charles advising them to file for divorce.

Following the broadcast, Diana carried on with her day to day life as normal, including moving forward with her plans to visit New York to accept the humanitarian award.

Despite the heckling incident, Diana’s stateside visit was deemed a success by Americans. The New York Post reportedly ran the headline “Di Wows Big Apple” and members of the public gathered outside her hotel to catch a glimpse of the princess.

TikTok users, seeing the awards incident for the first time, have praised Diana for her measured response under pressure.

“The way she smiles before answering. Real class,” posted one commented.

“She was the epitome of class [pensive face, red heart emojis],” wrote another.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Diana’s death at the age of 36 in a high-speed Paris car crash that also killed her then-boyfriend Dodi Fayed.

The princess’ experiences in the early years of the 1990s have recently been dramatized in the fifth season of Netflix’s royal drama The Crown. In the new season, Diana is played by Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki.

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