King Charles joked about Prince Harry's 'real' father

King Charles made “sadistic” jokes about Prince Harry’s “royal” father, reveals the prince in his new memoir.

Harry, 38, grew up amid public speculation that his real father was Princess Diana’s former lover, Major James Hewitt.

The prince writes in his new book, “Spare”, released on Tuesday, how Charles apparently enjoyed making offensive comments about his parentage.

In a segment, seen by Page Six, Harry writes: “Pa loved to tell stories, and this was one of the best in his repertoire. He always ended with a burst of philosophy… Who knows if I really am the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I’m really your real father?

“He laughed and laughed, although it was a remarkably unfunny joke, given the rumor circulating at the time that my real father was one of my mother’s former lovers: Major James Hewitt. One cause of this rumor was Major Hewitt’s flaming red hair, but another cause was sadism.

Harry said that tabloid readers loved the idea that his father wasn’t really Charles, insisting that it probably made them feel better about their own lives. “It doesn’t matter that my mother didn’t know Major Hewitt until long after I was born,” he adds.

It’s just one of the bombs in Harry’s book, in which he also breaks his silence about his stepmother, Camilla Parker Bowles, and his fractured relationship with his older brother, William.

He tells how William hit him during a fight over Harry’s future wife Meghan Markle – and how they begged their father not to marry Camilla.

Diana, the princes’ mother, had an infamous five-year affair with Hewitt after meeting him at a dinner party in 1986, and their fling made global headlines. Hewitt has become a controversial figure in the UK for his attempts to sell love letters he exchanged with the late princess, and has been branded “Britain’s greatest scoundrel”.

In 2019, author Anna Pasternak, who co-wrote the book “Princess In Love” with Hewitt, addressed one aspect of the case.

“Hewitt was regularly placed in car boots [trunks] and taken to Kensington Palace when the affair happened,” wrote the author in the Daily Mail. “He told me he was terrified the first night he stayed at Kensington Palace, relieved at least that Charles and Diana had separate bedrooms.”