Hair to the throne: Prince Harry’s hairy journey, from the time he shaved his hair off at Eton to his hedgehog-esque spikes… as he reveals his daughter Lilibet has her mother’s locks

Prince Harry inherited his famous red hair from the Spencer side of his family, and it looks as though his children have the ginger gene, too.

However, he recently revealed that his three-year-old daughter, Princess Lilibet, has also been ‘blessed’ with her mother’s long, thick hair.

‘It won’t be long until Lili can sit on hers,’ he added at last month’s WellChild awards in London, 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, meanwhile, has been through quite the journey with his own hair.

On his first day of nursery in 1987, he was pictured waving to cameras while clutching his school bag, with his strawberry blonde hair combed out of his eyes – but his look changed drastically 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 that my hair was a complete disaster. Like grass on the moors… Someone fetched the clippers. Someone pushed me into a chair. How quickly, how blithely, after a lifetime of healthy growth, it all went cascading off my head.’

When he looked at his new trim in the mirror, Harry ‘screamed in horror’ and dashed to his brother Prince William’s bedroom, only to be met with bewildered laughter.

Harry added that his hair hadn’t ‘fully recovered’ from the shave by the time he ventured abroad on his gap year in 2003, and grew back with some strands shooting up while others stayed flat. 

The Duchess of Sussex holding her son Archie, only four months old, in September 2019 in Cape Town

Harry, aged ten, wearing his hair with a side parting in 1995

The young Prince in 2002 attending a charity event at a polo ground in Tidworth, Wiltshire

Prince Harry photographed on his last day at Eton aged 18 in June 2003

The Prince, with short hair, pictured working as an assistant development officer with the Rugby Football Union at a primary school in 2004

During his trip to Australia, Harry visited Taronga Zoo in Sydney and was pictured holding a rather prickly echidna, otherwise known as a spiny anteater, named Spike.

The Daily Mail reported that Harry had grimaced after being pricked by the creature and said: ‘Ouch. It’s pretty feisty.’  

Its spines greatly resembled Harry’s hairstyle at the time, and he soon earned the nickname ‘Spike’, as revealed in his memoir. 

Even his bodyguards used this as Harry’s codename, with some donning T-shirts that read ‘Spike 2003’.

Even his private social media account seemed to have references to this nickname.

Around the time that Meghan met Harry, she followed ‘a mysterious-looking Instagram account by the name of @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’, which his former girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, referred to him as.

The Daily Mail’s coverage of Prince Harry holding Spike, the prickly echidna, at Taronga Zoo in 2003

Artist Nicky Philipps’ portrait of Harry and William chatting before a Trooping the Colour ceremony, which was unveiled in 2010

Harry, with his hair in a tousled style, attending 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

Back in 2010, Nicky Philipps unveiled a new portrait of Princes Harry and William chatting before a Trooping the Colour ceremony. 

However, Harry admitted afterwards that he was not impressed with how the artist, who was paid £11,000 by the National Portrait Gallery for the commission, captured his hair.

He said: ‘I’m a little bit more ginger in there than I am in real life.’

Referring to Prince William, Harry added: ‘He got given more hair so, apart from that, it could have been worse.’

Prince Harry told The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last year that the red hair gene is strong in his family. 

He said: ‘The Spencer gene is very, very strong. I actually really, genuinely thought at the beginning of my relationship [with Meghan] that should this go the distance and we have kids that there’s no way the ginger gene will stand up to my wife’s genes, but I was wrong!’ 

Princess Diana’s sisters, Lady Jane Fellowes and Lady Sarah McCorquodale, have ginger hair, as does her brother Earl Spencer.

The Duke of Sussex sporting a beard at the Invictus Games last year 

Princess Diana with her two sons sat at a piano in Kensington Palace in 1985

Prince Harry seems to have passed this gene down to his children, too. Back in 2020, the late Queen Elizabeth ‘noted that great-grandson Archie has Prince Harry’s red hair’ during a birthday video call, according to The Times. Photos of Princess Lilibet as an infant also show her with Harry’s hair colour, too.

In 2019, Prince Harry even bonded with a young girl over their ginger 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 when they both said ‘Snap’ while touching their hair. Harry then asked ‘Can I borrow some?’, referencing his thinning hair.