Prince William's Christening Tears Go Viral—Video

Footage from Prince William's christening at Buckingham Palace in 1982 went viral on social media as the royal celebrated his 41st birthday on June 21.

The prince was born at St. Mary's Hospital in London on the evening of June 21, 1982, as the first child of King Charles III (when Prince of Wales) and Princess Diana.

William's birthday this year was marked with the release of a special behind-the-scenes photograph from King Charles as father and son prepared for the historic coronation service that took place on May 6 at Westminster Abbey.

Uploaded to TikTok by user @remembering.diana on Thursday, the new viral video contains footage taken at the prince's christening while being soothed by his mother to stop his crying.

Captioned: "That time when Prince William cried during the whole photoshoot," the video has been viewed over 1.3 million times so far, receiving in excess of 122,000 likes and 300 comments.

The ceremony took place at 11 a.m. in the music room of Buckingham Palace, a traditional setting for royal christenings since the birth of Queen Victoria's children, on August 4, 1982.

The event was attended by the prince's parents, as well as Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip; Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother; Mrs. Frances Shand Kydd and Earl Spencer (William's maternal grandparents); and the prince's godparents, who included King Constantine II of Greece and Princess Alexandra of Kent.

Princess Diana gave an emotional account of the day to her biographer, Andrew Morton, a decade later in 1992, remembering the event in the context of the breakdown in her marriage.

Later published in a revised edition of his explosive book Diana: Her True Story, Morton included Diana's recollection that, in the midst of her experiences with post-natal depression, she felt she was treated "like nobody's business on 4 August."

"Nobody asked me when it was suitable for William," she said. "11 o'clock couldn't have been worse. Endless pictures of the queen, queen mother, Charles and William. I was excluded totally that day."

"I felt desperate," she continued. "Because I had literally just given birth—William was only six weeks old—and it was all decided around me. Hence the ghastly pictures. I wasn't very well and I just blubbed my eyes out. William started crying too. Well, he just sensed that I wasn't exactly hunky dory."

Royal christenings have remained an object of public fascination over the years, with images taken from the ceremonies dedicated to William's own children being widely circulated online and in the media.

After the prince married Kate Middleton in 2011, they welcomed their first child, Prince George, two years later. The prince was christened at the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace, first built by King Henry VIII in 1540 for his marriage to Anne of Cleves.

Following the ceremony, members of the royal and Middleton families gathered at nearby Clarence House to take official photographs, which included a portrait of Queen Elizabeth and her three direct heirs, the then-Prince Charles, Prince William and George.

The couple welcomed their second child, Princess Charlotte, in 2015 and she was christened at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene near the royals' Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, England.

William and Kate's youngest child, Prince Louis, was born in 2018 and had his christening in the same venue as his brother's, at St James's Palace.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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