Princess Diana Once Said Prince Charles Was Very Disappointed When Prince Harry Was Born

Prince Harry (opens in new tab) did plenty of not great stuff (opens in new tab) in his wild youth that could make a parent feel disappointed, but apparently his dad, Prince Charles (opens in new tab), was bummed about him way before that.

According to royal biographer Andrew Morton (opens in new tab), author of Diana: Her True Story, before her divorce (opens in new tab) Princess Diana confided to her close friend James Colthurst that Charles was obviously disappointed by Harry's arrival. It wasn't anything that Harry had done, of course—it was just that Charles had really been hoping for a daughter.

Diana, who claimed to have known she was having a boy (opens in new tab) before Harry was born (she said later that she saw the ultrasound when she was pregnant), said she knew how much Charles wanted their second child to be a girl and didn't share her knowledge of Harry's sex with him ahead of the birth (opens in new tab).

"Charles always wanted a girl. He wanted two children, and he wanted a girl," she said, according to Morton's account (via Express (opens in new tab)). "I knew Harry was a boy, and I didn’t tell him."

Diana reportedly put Charles in his place when he made his disappointment clear.

“First comment was ‘Oh God, it’s a boy,’ second comment: ‘And he’s even got red hair,'" Diana reportedly told her friend. She added that she responded by telling Charles, "You should realize how lucky you are to have a child that’s normal."

Apparently, the incident prompted one of the couple's bigger rifts (opens in new tab).

"Ever since that day the shutters have come down, and that’s what he does when he gets somebody answering back at him," she said.

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