Highlights:
- Prince Harry addresses the long-standing rumours surrounding his paternity, revealing the immense pain they caused him.
- The Duke of Sussex fears that British tabloid journalists wanted to prove his father was Major James Hewitt to potentially remove him from the royal family.
- Prince Harry’s legal battle against Mirror Group Newspapers exposes the use of unethical methods used to obtain information for numerous news articles about him
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, recently addressed the long-standing rumour that King Charles III is not his biological father, adding that the statement has caused him great pain for years. In his testimony to the court on June 6, the Duke of Sussex said he was afraid British journalists wanted to prove his father was Major James Hewitt so he could be ‘ousted’ from the royal family, Newsweek reported. Notably, the Duke of Sussex is suing Mirror Group Newspaper, alleging the use of unethical methods, such as hacking phones, to obtain information in order to produce dozens of articles about him.
One of them was an article in The People in the year 2002 titled: “The Plot to Steal Harry’s DNA. “Prince Harry noted that some newspapers had reported that his biological father was James Hewitt after his mother admitted to having an affair with him. In a witness statement, Prince Harry reiterated the false nature of the rumours, citing that his mother’s affair with James Hewitt began only years after he was born.
“Never mind that my mother didn’t meet Major Hewitt until long after I was born, the story was simply too good to drop,” he wrote in a statement. He further added, “At the time, when I was 18 years old and had lost my mother [Princess Diana] just six years earlier, stories such as this felt very damaging and very real to me.”
Talking about these rumours, he said, “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?” Notably, Prince Harry also mentioned the rumour in his memoir Spare. He said that he often made cruel and humorous jokes about King Charles not being his biological father.
“Pa liked telling stories, and this was one of the best in his repertoire. He’d always end with a burst of philosophizing … Who knows if I’m really the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I’m even your real father?” Harry wrote in his memoir, which was released on January 10. He continued, “He’d laugh and laugh, though it was a remarkably unfunny joke, given the rumour circulating just then that my actual father was one of Mummy’s former lovers: Major James Hewitt. One cause of this rumour 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.”
Major James Hewitt was romantically linked to Prince Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, in the 1990s. Their relationship lasted for 5 years, from 1986 to 1991 and took place while she was still married to King Charles. Prince Harry was born in 1984, 2 years before she met Mr Hewitt.
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In 2017, Mr Hewitt also blasted such rumours, simply saying, “No, I’m not.”
