Sarah Ferguson Reveals Why Princess Diana Wanted to Touch HIV Patients

Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson, the Duchess of York, has spoken about her friendship with Princess Diana and the late royal's motivation for reaching out to HIV and AIDS patients at a time where they were heavily stigmatized.

The ex-wife of Prince Andrew, who still lives with the royal at their home, Royal Lodge, in Windsor Great Park, opened up about life with Diana on the Tea Talks with The Duchess and Sarah podcast, on Thursday. Billed as a weekly "hot topics" show, Fergie has provided listeners with a glimpse behind palace walls in the episodes released so far, discussing her relationship with Queen Elizabeth II, as well as her daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.

In a conversation about charity work on the latest episode, the ex-royal told co-host Sarah Thomson how she and former sister-in-law, Diana, would discuss their work together.

"Diana and I, we definitely talked incessantly about charity. We both of us loved to give," she said. "She was very similar to me.

"She never understood how brilliant she was, really, you know, and together we both didn't. I used to hug her but she wouldn't understand."

The duchess then gave an example of Diana's famous charity work, her widely publicized engagement with patients diagnosed with HIV and AIDS.

When the princess first shook hands with an AIDS patient in 1987, without wearing gloves, it sent shock waves around the world as at the time the illness was heavily stigmatized, with the incorrect belief that it could be transferred by touch still prevalent.

Diana told staff at Middlesex Hospital in London, where she had just opened the first specialist HIV and AIDS unit in the U.K., that she wanted to be photographed shaking the hand of someone with the illness, but many of the patients refused on the grounds that they didn't want their faces to be identified or their families harassed as a result.

In the end one unnamed and unidentified patient agreed to be photographed from behind as the princess shook his hand, in an image that became one of the most widely circulated of Diana's public life.

Speaking about Diana's AIDS work, Fergie told her co-host the reason behind her desire to reach out and touch patients.

"Diana and I talked about when she did HIV and AIDS," the duchess said. "When she started really highlighting it and everyone said, 'no, you mustn't go and touch them,' and she said, 'why? I know what it's like to be ostracized and I know what it's like to be left in the corner of a room.' And that's what she did.

"And I know that feeling too, when people don't wish to talk to you because 'Bad Fergie' sells papers. They've already judged you and you're left alone."

Last year, 2022 marked the 25th anniversary since Diana's death from injuries sustained in a high-speed Paris car crash when she was just 36 years old.

Reflecting on the pair's friendship, Fergie said: "Her mother and my mother were at school together and they were best friends, and Diana was my fourth cousin, and… it's just extraordinary that we were brought together, and we loved each other with all our hearts."

"She made me laugh more than any other single person I've ever met in my life," she continued. "But Diana was just a tinkling laughter down the corridors and there was nobody like her in the world because she had that ability to give her entire heart because she didn't give her entire heart to herself. It's been written about many times. And I have decided at 63, to perhaps start understanding what that means."

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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