Prince Harry could not help but empathize with a young boy’s pain in grieving his late father during a recent trip to Bristol in southwest England.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex dropped by non-profit Empire Fighting Chance on Feb. 1 during their tour of the English city. The charity offers non-contact boxing lessons and a mentorship program to help youth from deprived communities in the United Kingdom.
One of the kids Harry and Meghan encountered was 15-year-old Iestyn Jones who became emotional as he spoke about his father who had passed away. It struck a chord so much with Harry that he reportedly asked everyone to leave the room so he could speak one-on-one with the boy, according to a tweet from royal reporter Emily Andrews.
Jones told reporters, as per People on Feb. 1, that the private chat lasted for 10 minutes. “He knew some stuff about me and the same thing happened to me,” the teen said.
He was also touched by Harry’s gesture after their talk: “When we had a group picture at the end he made sure I was standing next to him. They were lovely people. I didn’t expect them to be like that. They were amazing people.”
Harry, who advocates for mental health alongside Prince William and Duchess Catherine through the campaign Heads Together, has previously opened up on how boxing helped him deal with his mother’s death. Princess Diana passed away in 1997 when he was 12.
READ: Prince Harry suffered ‘total chaos’ over Diana’s death
He told Daily Telegraph in 2017 that he sought professional help when he was older — after 20 years of repressing his emotions about the loss of his mom.
“During those years I took up boxing, because everyone was saying boxing is good for you and it’s a really good way of letting out aggression,” he said in the report. “And that really saved me because I was on the verge of punching someone; so being able to punch someone who had pads was certainly easier.” Niña V. Guno/JB
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