Video footage of the moment Prince William appeared to fall briefly asleep in the days after the birth of his youngest son have resurfaced as fans shared a clip of the candid moment on TikTok.
William attended the annual ANZAC Day service at Westminster Abbey on April 25, 2018, commemorating the Commonwealth soldiers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada who died in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations.
Two days earlier on April 23, William’s wife, Kate Middleton, gave birth to the couple’s third child, Prince Louis, with many commentators at the time attributing William’s apparent tiredness to the routine change of parenting a newborn.
Uploaded to TikTok by user @the.royal.watcher, the footage of William taken from the official broadcast of the ceremony at Westminster Abbey has been viewed over half a million times on the platform and has received over 29,000 likes and 200 comments, many empathizing with the tired dad.
“A prince or not, having a newborn is exhausting,” wrote one TikTok user.
“Bless him, all parents know that feeling,” posted another, with a further comment reading: “It’s those moments where you have to TELL your eyes to open back up.”
“As a mom who had a six month old at the time I was like same dude/same,” an understanding commenter wrote.
In addition to welcoming his youngest son, the ANZAC Day service also fell in a period of increased royal attention, as the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took place less than a month later.
While Kate remained at home for the ANZAC commemorations, William was accompanied to the service by Harry and his soon-to-be-sister-in-law, Meghan. Not yet a member of the royal family, the service was one of Meghan’s first official ceremonies at the abbey.
Though at the time of the service, relations between William, Meghan and Harry appeared to the public to be positive. Harry provided an insight into fractures appearing between them in his memoir, Spare.
One of the commenters on TikTok had quipped that “Meghan refers to this as baby brain,” referencing one of the revelations Harry made in the book about Meghan and Kate’s tense relationship.
The royal said that relations between Meghan and Kate were increasingly strained during the period between Louis’ birth and the royal wedding, recounting Kate’s having taken offence to Meghan attributing the princess’ forgetting something at the time to “baby brain.”
In a subsequent confrontation, Harry claimed Kate told Meghan that the comment had “hurt” and that they weren’t close enough to “talk about my hormones!”
In a later passage, Harry wrote that there was also tension over bridesmaids’ dresses that left Meghan “sobbing” on the floor after a tense interaction with Kate.
For his part, Harry has accused William of “parroting” a narrative about Meghan which was perpetuated by the tabloid press after his brother described her as “rude” and “abrasive” during a 2019 argument.
The last time that William, Meghan, Kate and Harry were photographed together was in 2022, during the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Though Harry did travel to Britain to attend the coronation of King Charles III in May, Meghan remained at home in California with the couple’s two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
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.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.
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