Princess Diana’s friend on devastating Prince Harry paternity rumors: ‘It’s not possible’

There was a tabloid rumor that left Princess Diana heartbroken.

For years, some have speculated that her riding instructor, James Hewitt, was Prince Harry’s biological father, not King Charles. Both Harry and Hewitt share ginger hair and freckles.

Richard Dalton, Diana’s hairdresser, told Fox News Digital that "it’s not possible." Dalton has a new memoir, "It’s All About the Hair," which details their friendship.

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"It was tough," Dalton admitted. "Harry was already born a while before her relationship with Hewitt. And I don’t think it’s possible."

"But no," he stressed. "Harry and the Spencer family have red hair. Charles, Diana’s brother, had bright red hair when he was [in] college. And I used to cut his hair then. [Diana’s sister] Sarah, has bright red hair. [Diana’s other sister] Jane was more or less the same coloring as Diana."

He also shared in his book that Diana "used to get very upset" with the tabloids insisting that Hewitt was Harry’s father.

"The red hair was a trait from the Spencer family," he wrote.

According to reports, Diana first met Hewitt in 1986, two years after Harry was born in 1984. In his book, Dalton wrote that Diana and Hewitt had "a love affair" that lasted three years from 1989 to 1991. He stressed that Harry was born "long before Diana even met James Hewitt."

When Diana started taking riding lessons from Hewitt, it confused Dalton, who thought to himself, "Diana didn’t like riding horses." However, he understood that Diana was a young woman "longing to be truly loved."

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"I knew nothing about their affair and was not involved with any of the rendezvous, other than maybe unwittingly doing Diana’s hair each day," Dalton wrote. "She was certainly giddy at times when she talked about him because it was all new to her; however, we need to remember the context in which this all took place."

"Diana was starved of affection and intimacy from her husband, the man she loved," he wrote. "She was also an heir-making machine for Charles and was coming to terms with the betrayal within her marriage."

"… It saddened me to see James Hewitt, by virtue of his tell-all book, clearly signal that this relationship was a conquest and not a matter of love at all. He got her at her most vulnerable and, for her, he was just the first man who rolled along – a twist of fate, time and place. If it had not been him, it would have been someone else."

"He was certainly not the love of her life at the time, Charles was – there is no question in this matter at all," Dalton added.

Renae Plant, curator of The Princess Diana Museum, teamed up with Dalton for his book. She told Fox News Digital, "It must have been horrific for Diana to be faced with the ongoing rumors."

"She [couldn’t] come out there and say anything, but there’s all these rumors going around," said Plant. "... She was tormented [by] the press and the hounding of all these stories."

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Plant pointed out that Diana yearned to be like Dalton’s friend, British broadcaster Anne Diamond. She had a public platform to address any news to the public.

"[Anne] did breakfast TV," Dalton told Fox News Digital. "Diana used to say, ‘Oh, I wish I could be like your friend when something detrimental is written about her. She can put it right on TV.’ But that’s not how it was."

"She had to keep it all internalized and deal with it," Plant chimed.

In 2023, Harry sued the Daily Mirror for using unlawful techniques "on an industrial scale" to score front-page scoops on his life. The British royal became the first senior member to testify in more than a century.

During the trial, the Duke of Sussex admitted that the longtime tabloid rumor speculating that the king was not his biological father was "damaging" to him over the years. In a written statement, the 40-year-old cited the 2002 article "Plot to Rob the DNA of Harry," which speculated that the royal was Hewitt's child.

"Numerous newspapers had reported a rumor that my biological father was James Hewitt, a man my mother had a relationship with after I was born," Harry wrote. "At the time of this article and others similar to it, I wasn't actually aware that my mother hadn't met Major Hewitt until after I was born."

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Harry said the paternity rumor was perpetuated in several articles.

"At the time, when I was 18 years old and had lost my mother just six years earlier, stories such as this felt very damaging and very real to me," Harry admitted. "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 I might be ousted from the royal family?"

In late 2023, Harry won his phone hacking lawsuit against Mirror Group Newspapers. He was awarded over $180,000.

In his memoir, "Spare," Harry described how his father, 75, once made "sadistic" jokes about the painful gossip. For Harry, it was no laughing matter.

"Pa liked telling stories, and this was one of the best in his repertoire," Harry wrote. "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," Harry shared. "One cause of this rumor was Major Hewitt’s flaming ginger hair, but another cause was sadism."

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"[The press] couldn’t get enough of this ‘joke,’ for some reason," Harry reflected. "Maybe it made them feel better about their lives that a young prince’s life was laughable."

In 2002, Hewitt himself addressed the gossip.

"I have been aware for a while that the issue of Harry's paternity has been a major talking point," said Hewitt, as quoted by People magazine. "There really is no possibility whatsoever that I am Harry's father. I can understand the interest, but Harry was already walking by the time my relationship with Diana began."

"Admittedly, the red hair is similar to mine and people say we look alike," said Hewitt. "Looking at the pictures I would say he is a much more handsome chap than I ever was."

He addressed the speculation once more in 2017 during an appearance on an Australian TV show. When asked if he could be Harry’s father, Hewitt stressed, "No, I’m not."

"It sells paper," said Hewitt about the rumor. "It’s worse for [Harry], probably, poor chap."

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Dalton met Diana when she was just 17. He went on to style her hair for more than a decade. He hopes his book will introduce a new side to the late Princess of Wales – including her sense of humor.

"She would always keep fake vomit, and she’d put it into the private secretary’s briefcase," he told Fox News Digital about their royal tour of Australia in 1985. "And dog poop – all kinds of things."

The pair even got away with being naughty behind palace doors. Dalton described how Charles banned all aerosol sprays from Kensington Palace to help preserve the environment. 

The secret behind Diana’s royal mane was Elnett hairspray.

"We traveled with it a lot," said Dalton. "… I got to the palace and said to the princess, ‘There’s a hole in the ozone.’ She said, ‘Really? What does it look like?’ I said, ‘About the size of your dressing room. And it goes straight out – that’s it, the Elnett hairspray.’ We had a laugh about it."

"We kept using it," he said. "I suppose [Charles] probably didn’t know anything about it… We escaped. I’m not in the Tower of London."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.