King Charles made “sadistic” jibes about Prince Harry’s “real” father, the prince reveals in his new memoir.
Harry, 38, grew up amid public speculation that his true father was Princess Diana’s former lover Major James Hewitt.
The prince writes in his new book, “Spare,” out Tuesday, how Charles seemingly enjoyed making hurtful comments about his parentage.
In one segment, seen by Page Six, Harry writes: “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?
“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. One cause of this rumor was Major Hewitt’s flaming ginger hair, but another cause was sadism.”
Harry said that tabloid readers loved the idea that his dad was not really Charles, insisting it likely made them feel better about their own lives. “Never mind that my mother didn’t meet Major Hewitt until long after I was born,” he adds.
It’s just one of the bombshells in Harry’s book, in which he also breaks his silence on his stepmother, Camilla Parker Bowles, and about his fractured relationship with his older brother, William.
He tells how William hit him during a fight over Harry’s future wife, Meghan Markle — and how they urged their father not to wed Camilla.
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Diana, the princes’ mother, infamously had a five-year affair with Hewitt after meeting him at a dinner party in 1986, and their fling went on to make global headlines. Hewitt became a controversial figure in the UK for his attempts to sell love letters he exchanged with the late princess, and he was labelled “Britain’s biggest cad.”
In 2019 author Anna Pasternak, who co-wrote the book “Princess In Love” with Hewitt, addressed an aspect of the affair.
“Hewitt was regularly bundled into car boots [trunks] and driven to Kensington Palace when their affair ensued,” the author wrote in the Daily Mail. “He told me he was terrified the first night he stayed in Kensington Palace, relieved at least that Charles and Diana had separate bedrooms.”
