Prince Harry's Paternity Saga Continues in Court: 7 Things to Know

During the late 1990s, one of the hottest tales swirling around the Royal Family had to do with the paternity of Prince Harry. People always wondered where Harry got his red hair from. So when the allegations started making the rounds that James Hewitt, a fellow redhead, was really Harry's dad, people listened. It didn't help when Princess Diana confessed to having an affair with Hewitt during her infamous Panorama interview.

While the topic rarely comes up in conversation, it was heavily discussed during Harry's courtroom appearance last week. Here are 5 things you need to know about the Duke's paternity saga. 

According to reports, Diana was involved with Hewitt from 1986 until 1991. While Harry was born in 1984, many suspected her involvement with Hewitt started earlier than she let on. Harry and William even spent time with him, and he reportedly taught them how to play polo. 

During the trial, Harry maintains that the media was so hell-bent on proving that Hewitt was his dad, that they would go to any lengths to do so. He cited an article published in 2002 in the Sunday People with the headline: "Plot to rob the DNA of Harry." He says that the article "reported a plot to steal a sample of my DNA to test my parentage."

"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. 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. This timeline is something I only learnt of in around 2014, although I now understand this was common knowledge amongst the defendant's journalists," Harry revealed during the trial. 

"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. 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?"

Hewitt has always denied claims that he is Harry's father. In 2017 he flat-out denied he was Harry's dad during an interview with an Australian news show.

According to the Daily Beast, Hewitt lives a quiet life in a small town in the West of England, taking care of his elderly mom. He hasn't done an interview in years. 

However, according to playwright Jon Conway, who authored a play in 2015 entitled Truth, Lies, Diana, Hewitt met Diana before Harry's birth. Conway maintains that Hewitt told him: "Diana and I started our relationship more than a year before Harry was born. Now that doesn't prove that I am his father. It's just the inconvenient truth."

Conway told The Daily Beast: "The fact is he told me that he met Diana a year before Harry was born. He agreed to say that he didn't meet Diana until after Harry was born for obvious reasons. He said to me once he would rather let sleeping dogs lie. The fact that he met her a year before Harry was born does not mean to say he is Harry's father, it's just that the truth is messier than the official narrative put forward. James Hewitt saw more of Harry and William than their father did. He had a very close and loving relationship with them. Those two kids saw him every other weekend and in the school holidays for years."