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, said that "it’s not possible." Dalton has a new memoir, "It’s All About the Hair," which details their friendship.
"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."
"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 said, "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."
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 said. "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.
