James Hewitt, Princess Diana, photograph courtesy of People
London: Prince Harry addressed the speculation that King Charles III is not his ‘real father’ in a court testimony on June 6.
The Duke of Sussex admitted to have feared that the British tabloid journalists wanted to prove that his father was James Hewitt, thus getting him ‘ousted’ from royal family, reports say.
Hewitt was the former riding instructor of Harry’s mother Diana and she had an affair with Hewitt.
Harry has taken Mirror Group Newspapers to the court for employing unethical practices including alleged phone hacking, to obtain information on him.
Prince Harry said many newspapers rumoured that James Hewitt was his father after his mother admitted her affair with her riding instructor.
Harry rebutted the rumour saying that his mother did not meet Hewitt until ‘long 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,’ according to his written statement.
The stories of this kind, circulated by media when he was 18 years old and still grieving his mother’s death six years earlier, were damaging and real to him, 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?’ He was quoted as stating.
Prince Harry earlier in his memoir ‘Spare’ opened about the cruel and unfunny jokes made by King Charles to him about his paternity, saying ‘Who knows if I'm even your real father?’
Proving the rumours surrounding Harry’s paternity wrong, British newspaper Independent said Princess Diana met her cavalry officer Hewitt two years after Harry was born in 1984.