‘Hewitt rumours made me worry I’d be ousted from the family’
STORIES based on rumours that James Hewitt was his father were aimed at ousting him from the Royal Family, Harry suggested yesterday.
The prince’s mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, had a five-year affair with cavalry officer Mr Hewitt between 198 and 1991.
Diana publicly confessed to the relationship during her controversial BBC Panorama interview in 1995.
In his witness statement, Harry described stories referencing the rumours as ‘cruel’.
He said that he was 18 at the time of one such article and had lost his mother just a few years earlier.
He added: ‘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?’
Harry referred to an article in The People from 2002 with the headline ‘Plot to rob the DNA of Harry’ which reported on a bid to steal a sample from the Duke of Sussex to check his parentage.
Harry added that his mother had not met Major Hewitt until after he was born in 1984, and that this fact was common knowledge among the defendant’s journalists.
‘Numerous newspapers had reported a rumour that my biological father was James Hewitt, a man my mother had a relationship with after I was born,’ the duke said in his witness statement.
‘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.’
He added: ‘At the time, when I was 18 years old and had lost my mother just six years earlier, stories such as this felt
‘Hurtful, mean and cruel’
very damaging and very real to me.’
The duke said that he was particularly concerned over comments in the article which referred to a ‘highly placed royal source’ who provided details of the alleged plot and how his DNA would be ‘sold abroad’.
He said he did not believe the information came from anyone within Buckingham Palace. He claimed it showed that Mirror Group Newspapers were using unlawful means of gathering information about him for the article.