Princess Diana's hairdresser sets the record straight on hurtful Prince Harry rumour

A former hairdresser with close ties to the late Princess Diana has offered a rare anecdote about the Spencer family's distinctive red hair, and addressed a rumour surrounding Prince Harry. Mr Dalton, who met Diana for the first time in 1978 and served as her official hairdresser from 1981 to 1990, says the tabloid coverage of the princess often distressed and "annoyed" both him and her.

According to the long-serving hairdresser, one of the tabloid rumors that hurt Diana the most centered on the parentage of her youngest son, Prince Harry. The media ran during Diana's lifetime, claiming that Major James Hewitt was the youngest son's father, notably because the young Prince had red hair.

But Mr Dalton put rumours to rest by noting red hair was common in the Spencer family, as reported in People Magazine. "Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, when I used to cut his hair, his hair was bright red," Dalton remembers. "Lady Sarah, also red," he notes of Diana's oldest sister.

Mr Dalton added: "The Spencers definitely had red hair. But at that time, I wasn't in a position to actually say, 'Hello, Charles Spencer's hair was red.'"

According to Prince Harry, who writes about a paternity conversation in his bombshell memoir, Spare, not only did the Royal Family know and speak openly about the rumour, but he claims King Charles, would laugh about it.

"Pa liked telling stories, and this was one of the best in his repertoire," Harry writes, adding that Charles used to joke, "'Who knows if I'm really the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I'm even your real father? Maybe your real father is in Broadmoor, darling boy!'"

Recalling how Charles would "laugh and laugh," Harry went on to say it was "a remarkably unfunny joke, given the rumour circulating just then that my actual father was one of Mummy's former lovers: Major James Hewitt."

"Tabloid readers were delighted by the idea that the younger child of Prince Charles wasn't the child of Prince Charles," Harry wrote. They couldn't get enough of this 'joke,' for some reason. Maybe it made them feel better about their lives that a young prince's life was laughable."

Prince Harry added: "Never mind that my mother didn't meet Major Hewitt until long after I was born, the story was simply too good to drop."

In 1995, less than a year before Charles and Diana's official divorce, the Princess of Wales confirmed the affair in a BBC Panorama interivew. "Yes, I adored him. Yes, I was in love with him. But I was very let down," she said of Hewitt's involvement in the publication of the book.

Hewitt catapulted into the international spotlight in 1994 after retiring from the armed forces, when he worked with author Anna Pasternak for the book 'Princess in Love'. The book detailed the extramarital affair between Hewitt and Diana over the course of five years between 1986 and 1991.