Why The James Hewitt And Prince Harry Rumors Just Won't Die

It's a known fact that Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana had a rocky relationship. Per the Associated Press, Charles wrote to a friend about the state of his marriage, and he held nothing back. "How awful incompatibility is, and how dreadfully destructive it can be for the players in this extraordinary drama," he penned. "It has all the ingredients of a Greek tragedy ... I never thought it would end up like this.″

Both Charles and Diana had affairs in the '80s while still married. Charles began seeing his now-wife Camilla Parker Bowles, while Diana had a fling with an army captain named James Hewitt. According to Town & Country, Hewitt revealed the relationship in the 1994 book "A Princess In Love: The Bounder!" and Diana confirmed it in her famous 1995 interview with Martin Bashir.

Diana's relationship with Hewitt ended when he became stationed abroad in 1990, per Town & Country. However, its legacy has lived on with rumors that Hewitt is actually the father of Prince Harry. Hewitt has denied the rumors, but that hasn't stopped them from swirling. And now, a new show is bringing this gossip to the forefront once again.

The Broadway show "Diana: The Musical" was set to debut in 2020, but was shut down after only a few previews due to COVID-19, per The Guardian. While the fictionalized account of the late princess' life is slated to reopen in November, a recorded version of the show has debuted on Netflix. 

A fictionalized James Hewitt appears in the production, and his entrance is more reminiscent of "Magic Mike" than "Downton Abbey." According to The Cut, he rises up onto the stage shirtless while riding a fake bull, singing lines like, "You'll dismount satisfied!" and "Your royal highness, I think you'll adore my horse!" Although the show never claims Hewitt is Prince Harry's father, the implication of the possibility is clearly there.

This isn't the first play to reignite those rumors, either. In 2014, playwright Jon Conway made the same implication in his play "Truth, Lies, Diana," according to Metro. At one point, Hewitt's character says, "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." In a later scene, when asked if he knows the identity of Harry's father, Hewitt cheekily replies, "Of course I do."

But Ken Wharfe, Hewitt's friend and author of "Diana: Closely Guarded Secret," claims the timing doesn't add up. "Harry was born on September 15, 1984. ... Diana did not meet James Hewitt until the summer of 1986," he said, per The Sun.