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King Charles once made a joke about youngest son Prince Harry’s paternity based on rumors that persisted for years in tabloid media. Harry made the shocking admission in his upcoming book Spare, referencing one of his “mummy” Princess Diana‘s “former lovers” Major James Hewitt, which Hewitt documented in his own book.
“Pa liked telling stories, and this was one of the best in his repertoire. He’d always end with a burst of philosophizing: If this mental patient could be so thoroughly convinced of his identity, no less than Pa, it raised some very Big Questions indeed,” Harry, now 38, began as he explained how the hurtful joke came up. “Who could say which of us was sane? Who could be sure they weren’t the mental patient, hopelessly deluded, humored by friends and family? 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!” Charles allegedly said per the memoir, which is released on January 10, 2023 around the globe.
Harry admitted to being confused by the joke, adding that he believed it was a “remarkably unfunny joke” in the excerpt. “He’d laugh and laugh, though it was a remarkably unfunny joke, given the rumor circulating just then that my actual father was one of Mummy’s former lovers: Major James Hewitt,” he then wrote. Notably, Hewitt says his affair with Diana lasted four years from 1986 to 1990 — however, Harry is born in 1984, two years before the relationship allegedly began with the late Princess of Wales. Media would often compare photos of Hewitt to Harry side-by-side, as the two have an uncanny resemblance down to the bright red hair.
“One cause of this rumor was Major Hewitt’s flaming ginger hair, but another cause was sadism. Tabloid readers were delighted by the idea that the younger child of Prince Charles wasn’t the child of Prince Charles,” Harry then wrote.
Harry, however, doubled down on the belief that his mother and James didn’t meet until after he was born. “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 laugh-able. Never mind that my mother didn’t meet Major Hewitt until long after I was born,” he also said in Spare.