How Does Prince Harry Feel About the Cruel Rumor About His Paternity?
Royal family followers know all about Prince Harry and his relationship with his father, King Charles III. Prince Harry and King Charles have had their differences through the years, but Harry respects his father greatly, as they appear to have a civil relationship. Unfortunately, rumors swirled that suggested King Charles wasn’t Prince Harry’s birth father. Here’s what Harry had to say about this.
What does Prince Harry think about the rumors that King Charles III isn’t his father?
Is King Charles III Prince Harry’s birth father? Past rumors suggested Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, became pregnant with Harry thanks to her lover, James Hewitt. Diana and Hewitt reportedly had a romance in 1987.
So, what does Harry think of the rumors? He touched on them in his memoir, Spare.
“Pa liked telling stories, and this was one of the best in his repertoire,” Harry wrote, according to E! News. Harry then said King Charles would joke and say, “‘Who knows if I’m really the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I’m even your real father? Maybe your real father is in Broadmoor, darling boy!'”
Harry then called the jokes “remarkably unfunny,” suggesting he heavily dislikes the rumors.
“One cause of this rumor was Major Hewitt’s flaming ginger hair, but another cause was sadism,” Harry wrote. “Tabloid readers were delighted by the idea that the younger child of Prince Charles wasn’t the child of Prince Charles. They couldn’t get enough of this ‘joke,’ for some reason. Maybe it made them feel better about their lives that a young prince’s life was laughable.”
In June 2023, Harry made it known just how much he disliked the rumors. He sued Mirror Group Newspaper Limited for their unethical practices regarding obtaining information about him. Then, in a written statement, Harry referenced the rumors about King Charles not being his real father.
“At the time, when I was 18 years old and had lost my mother just six years earlier, stories such as this felt very damaging and very real to me,” he wrote, according to Us Weekly. “They were hurtful, mean, and cruel. … I was always left questioning the motives behind the stories. Were the newspapers keen to put doubt into the minds of the public so that I might be ousted from the royal family?”
Who is Princess Diana’s former lover, James Hewitt?
The rumors suggesting Prince Charles III isn’t Prince Harry’s birth father didn’t just hurt Harry. They also hurt Princess Diana’s former lover, James Hewitt. Hewitt denied the rumors in a 2017 interview with Australia’s Sunday Night.
“It sells papers,” Hewitt said of the rumors, according to Us Weekly. “It’s worse for [Harry], probably, poor chap.”
So, who is Hewitt? He was reportedly born into a military family, as his father was a British Navy officer. At 20, Hewitt joined the Brigade of Guards in the British Army. He then met Princess Diana at a party thrown by her lady-in-waiting, Hazel West, in 1986. He offered to help Diana learn to ride horses, and they had a romantic affair that lasted several years.
“Hewitt, a natural womanizer, gave her the attention and affection she relished, and then the passion she yearned for,” Diana’s bodyguard, Ken Wharfe, wrote in his book, Diana: Closely Guarded Secret. “The pair usually met at an old cottage in Devon belonging to Shirley, Hewitt’s mother, where the creaking bedroom floorboards told the story more loudly than any confession.”
By the end of the 1980s, their affair ended, as Hewitt went abroad to command a tank squadron. Diana reportedly felt betrayed by Hewitt’s choice to choose his career over her.
“When James refused to give up his career, Diana let the affair wane,” Wharfe wrote.
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