This is the touching reason Princess Diana never wore gloves
Princess Diana was seen as quite a rebel throughout her life, and that was especially apparent in her charity work.
Her brother Charles, 9th Earl Spencer, recently opened up to People about the iconic moment in 1987 when Diana shook hands with an AIDS patient in London. The simple act smashed stigmas at a time when public fears about catching the disease were prevalent.
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"She was not really a gloves person," he revealed.
"She was very real and very about human contact," Charles added. "And what really mattered that day was to get across a very clear message that, 'I'm going to touch this gentleman -- and you can all exist in a community with people who are suffering, and we must help."
Likewise, Eleri Lynn, who curated a recent exhibit on Princess Diana, also revealed that while the royal loved fashion, she also wanted to focus on her work, so she found a way to "use fashion to help that."
It's safe to say that Princes Diana was never one to skirt around controversial issues -- including the stigma of AIDS in the early '90s.
"HIV does not make people dangerous to know. You can shake their hands and give them a hug. Heaven knows they need it," Princess Diana once said.
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Diana's commitment to her charity work captivated the world, and she often made headlines for her incredible devotion. There was rarely a day when she wasn't photographed visiting a hospice or school or attending a charity gala.
Her patronages included Centrepoint, an organization working with the homeless, The National Aids Trust and The Leprosy Mission. During her lifetime, the princess was at some point patron of an additional 100 charities.
Another big cause later in Diana's life was tackling the lethal landmines that littered war zones in Angola, Africa and the former Yugoslavia. She made many charity trips overseas to Australia, Bosnia, Egypt, India, Pakistan, and many European countries.
The late royal left behind a a lasting legacy, and now her two children, Prince Harry and William, continue to carry on her work.
The two brothers, alongside William's wife Duchess Kate, have aggressively campaigned for their mental health charity Heads Together this year.
In a series of interviews, William and Harry opened up about the death of their mother. Likewise, Duchess Kate also got candid about the struggles of motherhood, revealing that it can be lonely at times. The media campaign showed a softer, more personal side of the royals the public rarely sees.
As Diana's 20th death anniversary nears, more details have surfaced about her life outside the public eye. Kensington Palace recently released three never-before-seen photos of the Princess of Wales with her two sons. She is also the subject of numerous documentaries and specials that have premiered in the past month.
For more on her death anniversary, watch the video above.
RELATED: Photographs from Princess Diana's funeral:
