Diana’s Hairdresser Addresses Paternity Rumors Surrounding Charles and Harry: ‘His Hair Was Red’
While King Charles and Princess Diana's marriage faced many challenges, they were blessed with two beautiful sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. After their separation, fueled by infidelity on both sides, the media turned its attention to Diana’s boys. Rumors circulated that Harry's father might be James Hewitt, partly as they both had red hair. Commenting on the decades-old gossip, Diana’s hairdresser, Richard Dalton, has revealed that the claims deeply hurt the late Princess, since they were far from accurate.
In an interview with PEOPLE, Dalton claimed Diana used to ask him to ‘smuggle’ newspapers, because she was restricted from reading them by the Palace. He said, "One of the hairdressers smuggled them in...Nobody questioned it because nobody knew. Once I’d got through security and into the pantry, it was all plain sailing from there." The hairdresser added that him and the Princess would then read the tabloids together and be deeply 'annoyed'. "They always [went] on about, ‘Is Charles the father of Harry? Of course he is." The ex-royal hairdresser detailed Diana’s reactions to the same. "I’d be doing her hair, she’d be flipping through the pages [of a tabloid], and she’d go, 'Ugh,'...Then another one comes along and then [she'd go], ‘Ohhhhhh.’"
Dalton debunked the salacious rumors, arguing that Harry’s red hair was passed down from the Spencer family, and not Hewitt. He said, "Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, when I used to cut his hair, his hair was bright red. The Spencers definitely had red hair. But at that time, I wasn't in a position to actually say, ‘Hello, Charles Spencer’s hair was red.'"
The rumors surrounding the young Prince’s paternity not only upset Diana, but also Harry himself. In his memoir, Spare, Harry shared that Charles’s nonchalant attitude towards the gossip surrounding his paternity was ‘sadistic.’ He penned, "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 even your real father?" The Duke claimed that the King would often burst out in laughter at the ‘unfunny joke’. "One cause of this rumor was Major Hewitt’s flaming ginger hair, but another cause was sadism."
Echoing Dalton’s claims, Harry has spoken about how his children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, have inherited red hair from the Spencer family. He said on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that his kids got their red hair from, "Definitely my mum. The ginger gene is a strong one!"
As for the late Diana’s connection with Hewitt, she met the former Army Officer in the summer of 1986 at a dinner party, two years after Harry was born, soon beginning a five-year affair with him. Hewitt became a controversial figure in the UK for his attempts to sell the love letters he wrote to the late Princess.