Prince Harry inherited his famous red hair from the Spencer side of his family, and it looks like his children have the ginger hair too.
However, he recently revealed that his three-year-old daughter, Princess Lilibet, is also “blessed” with her mother’s long, thick hair.
“It won’t be long before Lili can sit on hers,” he added at the WellChild Awards in London last month, as reported in Hello! magazine. He noted that the Duchess of Sussex has also passed on her thick hair to their five-year-old son, Prince Archie.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s daughter, Princess Lilibet, pictured in 2022
The Duke of Sussex photographed at the WellChild Awards in London earlier this year
The young prince on his first day at nursery in Kensington in 1987. His hair is neatly combed to the side
The Duke of Sussex has now gone on quite a journey with his own hair.
On his first day at nursery in 1987, he was pictured waving at the camera while holding his school bag, with his strawberry blonde hair combed back from his eyes – but his appearance changed dramatically after he moved to Eton in 1998.
In his memoir, Spare, the prince recalled the moment his school friends shaved off his hair. Harry wrote: ‘Someone suggested my hair was a complete disaster. Like grass on the heath… Someone got the clippers. Someone pushed me into a chair. How quickly, how happily, after a lifetime of healthy growth, it all flowed from my mind.’
When he looked at his new garment in the mirror, Harry “screamed in horror” and ran to his brother Prince William’s bedroom, where he was met with bewildered laughter.
Harry added that his hair had not “fully recovered” from shaving by the time he ventured abroad for his gap year in 2003, and grew back, with some strands shooting up while others remained flat.
The Duchess of Sussex holds her son Archie, just four months old, in Cape Town in September 2019
Harry, aged ten, wore his hair parted to the side in 1995
The young prince attended a charity event at a polo field in Tidworth, Wiltshire, in 2002
Prince Harry photographed on his last day at Eton, aged 18, in June 2003
The prince, with short hair, works as an assistant development officer at the Rugby Football Union at a primary school in 2004
During his trip to Australia, Harry visited Sydney’s Taronga Zoo and was pictured with a rather spiny echidna, also known as a spiny anteater, named Spike.
The Daily Mail reported that Harry grimaced after being poked by the creature and said: ‘Ouch. It’s pretty tough.’
The spikes closely resembled Harry’s hairstyle at the time, and he was soon nicknamed ‘Spike’, as revealed in his memoirs.
Even his bodyguards used this as Harry’s codename, donning some T-shirts that read “Spike 2003.”
Even his private social media account seemed to contain references to this nickname.
Around the time Meghan met Harry, she was following “a mysterious-looking Instagram account called @SpikeyMau5,” Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand wrote in Finding Freedom. He also apparently had a Facebook account under the name Spike Wells.
Harry’s other light-hearted nicknames included “Ginger,” used by his late mother Princess Diana, and “Big Ginger,” as his ex-girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, called him.
The Daily Mail’s reporting of Prince Harry holding Spike, the spiny echidna, at Taronga Zoo in 2003
Artist Nicky Philipps’ portrait of Harry and William chatting before a Trooping the Color ceremony, unveiled in 2010
Harry, with his hair tousled, attended a MapAction charity reception in London in 2007
The prince photographed at RAF Shawbury, where he underwent helicopter training with his brother William in 2009
In 2010, Nicky Philipps unveiled a new portrait of Princes Harry and William chatting before a Trooping the Color ceremony.
However, Harry admitted afterwards that he was not impressed with the way the artist, who received £11,000 from the National Portrait Gallery for the commission, captured his hair.
He said: ‘I’m a bit more ginger there than in real life.’
Referring to Prince William, Harry added: ‘He grew more hair, so apart from that it could have been worse.’
Prince Harry told The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last year that the redhead gene is strongly present in his family.
He said: ‘The Spencer gene is very, very strong. I actually thought very, sincerely at the beginning of my relationship [with Meghan] If this goes that far and we have children, there is no way the ginger will be able to withstand my wife’s genes, but I was wrong!’
Princess Diana’s sisters, Lady Jane Fellowes and Lady Sarah McCorquodale, have red hair, as does her brother Earl Spencer.
The Duke of Sussex wore a beard during the Invictus Games last year
Princess Diana sat at a piano at Kensington Palace with her two sons in 1985
Prince Harry also appears to have passed this gene on to his children. In 2020, the late Queen Elizabeth “noticed that great-grandson Archie has Prince Harry’s red hair” during a video call on her birthday, according to The times. Photos of Princess Lilibet as a baby also show her with Harry’s hair color.
In 2019, Prince Harry even bonded with a young girl over their red hair at the WellChild Awards. Harry and Meghan were filmed meeting 11-year-old Milly Sutherland and her mother Angela.
The Prince and Milly shared a sweet moment as they both said “Handsome” while touching their hair. Harry then asked: ‘Can I borrow some?’, referring to his thinning hair.