Fact Check

Real Pic of Princess Diana Shaking AIDS Patient's Hand Without Gloves?

Social media users said the photo was taken when the stigma around HIV was high.

Published Oct. 14, 2024

 (Getty Images)
Image courtesy of Getty Images
Claim:
A photo shared online for years authentically shows Princess Diana in 1991 shaking hands with a man who was diagnosed with AIDS.

A photograph allegedly showing Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1991 shaking hands with a man diagnosed with HIV/AIDS — at a time when stigma surrounding the virus was high — has been shared widely on social media for more than a decade.

A reverse image search (archived) showed the image had been shared hundreds of times to various social media platforms since at least 2012, including TikTok and Reddit, the latter of which had received more than 93,000 upvotes as of this writing.

The picture is indeed authentic and does show the royal shaking hands with an HIV/AIDS patient.

Getty Images hosts the photo with a description that says it showed Diana shaking hands with a resident of an AIDS hospice in Toronto:

TORONTO, CANADA - OCTOBER 25: Princess Diana Shaking Hands With One Of The Residents Of Casey House, An Aids Hospice, In Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images)

Casey House is a hospice and care center located in Toronto that opened in 1988 at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic to house patients diagnosed with the virus. It was Canada's "first stand-alone treatment facility for people living with HIV/AIDS, and Ontario's first free-standing hospice," according to its website.

The site contains a similar photo (archived) of Diana wearing the same shirt and shaking hands with another patient.

(Casey House)

The Associated Press also hosts the image, with a description that reads:

FILE--Diana, Princess of Wales, talks with AIDS patient Wayne Taylor at the Casey House AIDS hospice in Toronto Oct. 26, 1991.

Another image of the princess wearing the same outfit and talking to the patient in the social media posts was published by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on June 4, 2023. The article echoed the description provided by Getty and the AP, and said the man featured in the photo was Wayne Taylor.

Pictures like the ones above have been described as "historic" because at the time they were taken, misguided understandings about how HIV/AIDS spread were prominent in society.

In 1984, The New York Times reported that AIDS might be transmitted through saliva, bringing with it fear and stigma for those infected, and for people around them. Around 1987, researchers found that only blood, semen, vaginal secretions and possibly breast milk were involved in transmission.

Another image widely shared on social media also featured Diana, this time in a blue dress, shaking hands with another AIDS patient in 1987.

The above picture is also authentic and hosted by Getty Images. Its caption reads:

LONDON - APRIL 9: Diana, Princess of Wales shakes hands with a Aids victim as she opens a new Aids ward at the Middlesex Hospital on April 9, 1987 in London, England. (Photo by Anwar Hussein/WireImage)

According to the BBC, Princess Diana opened the U.K.'s "first purpose built HIV/Aids unit" at London Middlesex Hospital in 1987, which "exclusively cared for patients infected with the virus." 

Sources

Altman, Lawrence K. "AIDS STUDIES HINT SALIVA MAY TRANSMIT INFECTION." The New York Times, 9 Oct. 1984. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/09/science/aids-studies-hint-saliva-may-transmit-infection.html.

AP. https://newsroom.ap.org/editorial-photos-videos/detail?itemid=882f88b8c2e0da11af9f0014c2589dfb&mediatype=photo. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Davison, Janet. "3 Decades Later, the Diana Effect — and the Casey House Effect — Come to the Stage." CBC News, 4 June 2023. CBC.ca, https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/casey-diana-princess-of-wales-aids-hospice-princess-anne-1.6859291.

"Diana, Princess of Wales Shakes Hands with a Aids Victim as She Opens..." Getty Images, 22 Aug. 2007, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/diana-princess-of-wales-shakes-hands-with-a-aids-victim-as-news-photo/76214611.

"How Princess Diana Changed Attitudes to Aids." BBC News. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-39490507. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Our Origins | Casey House. 29 May 2021, https://caseyhouse.ca/about-us/our-origins/.

"Princess Diana Shaking Hands With One Of The Residents Of Casey..." Getty Images, 1 Feb. 2005, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/princess-diana-shaking-hands-with-one-of-the-residents-of-news-photo/52103210.

Products, Institute of Medicine (US) Committee to Study HIV Transmission Through Blood and Blood, et al. "History of the Controversy." HIV And The Blood Supply: An Analysis Of Crisis Decisionmaking, National Academies Press (US), 1995. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK232419/.

Recommendations for Prevention of HIV Transmission in Health-Care Settings. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00023587.htm. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Reporter, James Crawford-Smith Royal. "Moment Princess Diana Made History With AIDS Patient Goes Viral on TikTok." Newsweek, 13 July 2022, https://www.newsweek.com/princess-diana-history-aids-viral-tiktok-video-1724132.

"Timeline of The HIV and AIDS Epidemic." HIV.Gov, https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/history/hiv-and-aids-timeline. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

TinEye Reverse Image Search. https://www.tineye.com/search/f4a64bd34da84be41576486b082f1c6985c7ae8f?sort=crawl_date&order=asc&page=1. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Madison Dapcevich is a freelance contributor for Snopes.