Prince Harry has repeatedly expressed his surprise that his ginger genes overpowered Meghan’s genes. Their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, are both redheads, although we haven’t seen either kid in a while, and it’s likely that their hair color has changed as they both get older. Archie’s hair, once bright orange, looks like it’s getting darker with age. Lilibet might end up a strawberry-blonde. Why are we talking about Harry’s genes? Well, he brought it up! He talked about it with one of Hello’s editors when he was in London for the WellChild Awards:
The Duke of Sussex has shared a sweet tidbit about his children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, revealing that the youngsters have been “blessed” with their mother Meghan Markle’s long, thick hair. In this week’s issue of HELLO!, chief content officer Sophie Vokes-Dudgeon writes about meeting Harry at last month’s WellChild Awards. Harry, 40, is patron of the children’s charity and has been attending the annual awards for years, while HELLO! is a long-time media partner.
“I knew that the WellChild Awards were special to Prince Harry, but it wasn’t until I had seen him in action that I was able to understand quite how much this special day means to the 40-year-old royal,” Sophie, who attended the ceremony, writes. “From the moment he arrived in the reception room, he had an infectious energy about him, and there were no airs and graces at all as he chatted animatedly about his own children ahead of the event.”
Sophie adds: “Archie and Lili have been blessed with their mother’s thick hair, he told us, self- effacingly, as he marvelled that it won’t be long until Lili can sit on hers.”
“He was enjoying being 40 and had been told by friends that it was the best decade, so he had high hopes for it. His wonderful wife Meghan was holding the fort, he said, her hands full with not only their two children but also their three dogs, which he joked were not quite house-trained. Not to mention the chickens!”
Sophie adds that the father-of-two was “in his element”. “The real joy for Harry is the time he spends with the children, parents and professionals being celebrated on the night. Our royal editor Emily Nash accompanies him each year and is genuinely moved each time as she observes the Duke down on his knees with the children, joking, laughing and raising smiles while he plays with the kids – something that has become even more profound for him since he became a father himself.”
“Archie and Lili have been blessed with their mother’s thick hair, he told us, self-effacingly, as he marvelled that it won’t be long until Lili can sit on hers.” OMG. Lili’s hair is so long! And you could tell from the photos of Archie several years ago that he has a full head of thick curls. Hopefully the Spencer and Windsor bald-ass genes don’t descend on Archie too early. As for the rest of it… it’s not like Hello is writing this through gritted teeth. They seem genuinely happy that Harry stopped into London for a good cause. If anything, there’s a tinge of regret, like… we wish he could be around more often. Too bad the left-behinds are psychos!
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Misan Harriman for the Sussexes, the Ellen Show.
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- Catherine Duchess of Cambridge arrives for the Royal Variety Performance at the Royal Albert Hall, London, UK,Image: 643835863, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: James Shaw / Avalon
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- The Duke of Sussex, Patron of WellChild, arrives for the annual WellChild Awards 2024, which celebrates the achievements and resilience of seriously ill youngsters and their families, at the Hurlingham Club in London Featuring: Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex Where: London, United Kingdom When: 30 Sep 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Duke of Sussex, Patron of WellChild, arrives for the annual WellChild Awards 2024, which celebrates the achievements and resilience of seriously ill youngsters and their families, at the Hurlingham Club in London Featuring: Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex Where: London, United Kingdom When: 30 Sep 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Duke of Sussex, Patron of WellChild, arrives for the annual WellChild Awards 2024, which celebrates the achievements and resilience of seriously ill youngsters and their families, at the Hurlingham Club in London Featuring: Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex Where: London, United Kingdom When: 30 Sep 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Duke of Sussex, Patron of WellChild, arrives for the annual WellChild Awards 2024, which celebrates the achievements and resilience of seriously ill youngsters and their families, at the Hurlingham Club in London Featuring: Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex Where: London, United Kingdom When: 30 Sep 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Guests arrive for the annual WellChild Awards 2024, which celebrates the achievements and resilience of seriously ill youngsters and their families, at the Hurlingham Club in London Featuring: The Duke of Sussex, Patron of WellChild Where: London, United Kingdom When: 30 Sep 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
Harry is always engaging with people of his charities this time it’s with the children. I’m glad he had fun with it and his little bits that he talks about his beloved little family. Harry is happy and living his best life!
M, also had reddish-auburn hair as an-infant, too.
Harry’s ginger genes DID NOT ‘overpower’ Meghan’s genes. 🤦♀️ How many times is it necessary to point out that both parents must carry the red hair gene for any offspring to have red hair?! Obviously, H&M are unaware of this biological fact, too. Plus, they are related on the Spencer side via Meghan’s paternal grandmother’s ancestry!!!
Clearly, H&M hit the ginger-hair jackpot with their offspring, but H&M both carry the gene for red hair, which is recessive. Thus, that’s the reason they must both carry it. The child they lost via miscarriage, most likely, did not have red hair (statistically speaking).
Harry is rightly proud of his kids. No doubt that Lili will have long, beautiful hair. What we have seen so far in photos, her hair seems to follow her Dad’s in ginger color and in wispy, fly-away quality. But that’s not a real indicator of how thick it might be, I suppose. I think it is Archie who has the really thick, curly hair inherited from Meghan. At least, being a girl, Lili will not be losing her hair in her late 20s and early 30s, like her father.
OK, calm down. He makes joking asides about the ginger gene. He’s not teaching a genetics class. He’s giving an interview to Colbert or Hello! or Cordon.
Yeah, Harry was joking on Colbert. But he was also serious about thinking his genes did not stand a chance against Meg’s. 😂🤭 It does not work that way, honestly. Sure, we can laugh about it, and that’s partly the intention of his comment.
In any case, my observations are not about teaching a ‘genetics’ class. I am pointing out our collective ingrained ignorance of our common humanity due to centuries of indoctrinated stereotypes centered around the man-made concept of ‘race,’ constructed to divide people.
Lol no I agree with this @aftershocks. It’s an anecdote Harry likes to tell, that his ginger gene overpowered Meghan’s genes. I wrote further down that Harry does not own the ginger gene even though he very clearly identifies with it😂. Bc if he’d had kids with a woman who had no recessive ginger gene then their kids wouldn’t be ginger! So Meghan played her part in this ginger family and he should be giving her some ginger credit! Maybe my understanding of genetics is wrong but I’m pretty sure that’s how it works? Just saying his genes didn’t overpower or win and he should be speaking in terms of collaboration😂. Mostly it’s funny to hear him being so proud of his kids and their hair.
Oh sweet Lord, it’s all good. Harry can say whatever he wants about his kids, it’s a free country.
I think Archie has the most striking hair color with that ginger brown combination. Just the perfect mix of both parents.
I wonder if lili’s hair has gotten as curly as her brother’s or if it’s more wavy
It sounds like Archie’s hair is auburn, like his great-aunt Sarah Spencer’s was, when she was younger. I’m happy to see the Spencer genes are coming through with both kids. So gorgeous!
Thick hair: the black heritage is coming through?
Black people have different types of hair. We deal with thin hair and hair loss like other races.
That was my first thought. That they both have thick, curly hair.
His comment about how long her hair is would suggest not curly though.
@Mightymolly, Meghan had long thick curly hair when she was young (before she began straightening it), so I’m not sure why you think curly can’t mean long. Plenty of people have hair that’s both long and curly.
I just did an image search, and I can’t find any pictures of Meghan with curly hair long enough to sit on. She has beautiful hair just below her shoulders, but by no means extraordinarily long.
Hmm, Lili’s hair was very straight in the Netflix documentary, as a baby. It looks straight-wavy in the one-year-old birthday photo. In other photos, it seems rather wispy and thin, albeit she appears to have a lot of hair. I am not sure how good a judge Harry is, since he’s a proud papa.😘 He has also said that he thinks Lili takes after Diana. Aside from her blue eyes, ginger hair and fair coloring, Lili does NOT resemble Diana facially. Plus, Lili appears to have the petite bone structure of her mother, not of her paternal grandmother.
@MightyMolly, check out all the young pictures of Meghan with very thick, curly hair, gobs of it. Her hair has always been thick, curly and long. It got even longer, as a child, when the curls were straightened. There’s a photo of her as a teenager with curls for days all around her head and flowing down her back. She has obviously cut it in different styles over the years. If she let it grow, it would have been long enough to sit on. Women with kinky curly hair who go natural with dreadlocks can grow their hair out very long, down their backs, if they so choose.
@mightymolly It can be “long enough to sit on” but just shrink a lot. My hair is waist length but is very kinky-curly so it shrinks up to nearly my shoulders. I always air dry it in twists or braids so it’ll “stretch” my hair out and even then it’s to my bra straps. It’s only when I flat iron my hair where people are going “Wait your hair is HOW long?!?!”
So Lili could definitely almost have hair “long enough to sit on” even if any curliness hides her full length! 🙂
I have thick curly hair (I’ve worn it long and short over the years) and I’m a pale-skinned Irish girl.
We are too caught up with faux ‘racial-based’ constructs. Plenty of fair-skinned people of different backgrounds have thick, curly hair. Plenty of dark-skinned people have thin hair no matter whether curly or straight. Humans are infinitely related.
Remember the trip they took to Costa Rica with the kids, lili’s hair had already grown really long and was already down her back even in a pony tail.
That was my first thought when I read the article
I too hope little Archie escapes the Windsor baldness curse. If his mother’s incredible mane of thick hair is any indication, the odds are on his side. So happy for Harry to have the family life he wanted. Everyone should be adored this opportunity. I remember reading in his memoir Spare, William telling him he needs to accept that he may not have his own family and he needs to be alright with this. When I read this I felt incredibly sad knowing this is what they hoped for him. So happy he found his love and bounced when they tried to take it away from him.
That struck me too. Imagine telling someone (especially one in their early 30s) that they should accept never having their own family. Just awful.
That’s William!
male pattern baldness is generally X linked so, if Archie does develop it, it would come from Meghan’s side
@Maxine Branch, I believe it matters more how much hair Meg’s father still has, and how much hair her maternal grandfather had as an adult. Archie should be okay in terms of not balding as much as Harry. However, in adulthood, Archie’s hair might thin out a bit to some degree.
Harry sounds really proud of his family. I’m so happy for him. The British press won’t admit it but they’re desperate for Harry and Meghan to return to royal life. It’s not going to happen and it’s what they deserve.
Cute thinking of little Lilibet with long strawberry blonde hair..🥰 both those children are going to be absolutely gorgeous.
Dear Haz,
you need to be very brave now, but the Duke of Rosarito, whom you all have quite rightfully blanked, is also bald.
With my most sincere wishes for Archie to have a full head of hair beyond his retirement
Signed, me
LOL! The Ragland grandpapa matters, too. His hair seemed to thin a bit, too. But who knows, maybe Archie will luck out with some help from the Roche side or through some distant maternal Ragland-connected ancestry. 🤞🏽
I’d like to see that little ginger Lili with a head full of red wavy, long hair, looking exactly like her grandma Diana as a child. The Windsors (read W&K) would be very jealous.
Actually, Lili has Doria’s and Bad Dad’s round, wide nose. And she has Doria’s round face, plus Meg’s petite bone structure which Meg appears to have inherited, in part, from her grandmother, Jeanette. What Lili inherits from Diana are the blue eyes, fair coloring, and strawberry blond hair.
I think Lili’s baby picture looks just like QEII, especially the shape of the eyes when smiling.
If they have red hair it’s because BOTH Harry and Meghan have the genes for it. The kids being gingers are not due to Harry’s genes winning out over Meghan’s. The redhead gene is recessive. They got it from Meghan, too.
I don’t think you are right in this.
Genetics are complicated and not as simple as x+y=z absolutely. But red hair is recessive. Meghan has the genes for it from Bad Dad and Harry is a redhead. It’s why red hair can hide in a family and then pop up generations after the last one sometimes.
Red hair and blue eyes are the rarest of combinations, around 0.17% of the population has BOTH recessive traits or mutations.
I think it is complicated, but red hair is recessive and barring some mutation, there have be be ginger genes on both sides. But it often stays hidden through a generation or two and arises unexpectedly.
My sister and her husband both have dark brown hair. My parents have dark hair too, but at least one of my Dad’s aunts had red hair and so did an aunt of my brother-in-law (he is fully Irish American). So one of my sister’s daughters got true red hair. It’s beautiful!
The DNA for red hair is not as strong as brown. In order to have red hair, the alleles (portions of genes) from each parent need to be red. These are recessive traits.
Thomas Markle had reddish hair so Meghan got the recessive genes from him. Harry having the genes from both his parents meant 3/4 parents with the recessive red hair genes available.
Exactly, though the chances are higher if one parent is a redhead. I have red hair. My dad had red hair. My mom has brown hair (there is red in her family, obviously). My brother has brown hair.
From the last full picture I saw, her birthday picture, Lili has blue eyes and reddish hair. I hope it stays! We are rare!!
Similar for me. My mom had brown hair, my father light brown. But my paternal grandmother is a ginger. My brother is a ginger. I have brown hair but have the gene. My husband is a ginger as are all three of our kids, two of whom have blue eyes. My oldest has grey eyes.
My mom and brother have brown eyes. I’m the only one in my entire family with green eyes, to the point where it was an awkward talking point my whole life.
Both of them are descended from Edward III, as are William and Kate, They are all distant cousins.
Diana had several lines of descent from Stuart kings
Right? Harry keeps owning those red-haired genes lol. But it wouldn’t get passed down unless Meghan had the recessive gene for red hair. So it’s a combo of their genes that produced the gingers. Now, the thickness, idk about that. That probably is all Meghan😂? Poor Harry. As his hair recedes a little more each day, he’s just happy they got their mama’s thick hair.
Actually, Harry’s uncle Earl Spencer has thick hair, and his mother and aunts all had very thick hair as children, and I think, even now. Harry just got hit by the Windsor curse. Fingers crossed that his children will continue to take after the Spencer side.
Archie and Lili, fortunately appear to take more after Spencer, Markle, and Ragland sides. Harry takes more after Spencer and Mountbatten sides.
That is true and thank you for saying so!
LOL! The Windsor baldness curse also comes from Diana’s Spencer father’s side. Most likely, it is Diana’s mother, Frances Roche (Spencer) Shand Kydd, whose Irish Roche family provided the thick hair, also with the red gene prevalent .
Her dad looked like he was an (auburn-ish) redhead back in his day…it’s definitely plausible. Genetics are a wonder.
I have a similar genetic makeup to the kids. I’m half Black (Dad had very dark hair, almost black) half white (mom is a carrot top). The ginger is in all four of us. With my siblings it’s in natural highlights. For me, is the dominant color. I don’t think red hair genes work exactly the same way as blonde when it comes to dominant and recessive. I think it may be co dominant.
The gene for red-hair is recessive. Both of your parents surely carry it, whether you realize it or not. Genetics does not work on assumptions, personal beliefs, and hunches.
As a biracial person, I love the double heritage I get to experience, and I’m so glad these kids get the same gift. They are also about 3/4 white. When kids are 3/4 white, they definitely get to enjoy both heritages, but people often forget that the white heritage can be easily seen for a reason. Many people we think of as white are genetically mixed, too. They simply look white.
Sorry if this is a double post! I think my first comment got lost.
Humanity is definitely ‘mixed.’ BTW, ‘white’ and ‘black,’ are man-made labels and identifications based on indoctrinated stereotypes and false constructs. And yep, we are stuck with the terminology.
Their life together came at a cost but I’m glad Harry and Meghan found each other, everybody deserves to be happy 💕
Archie has a great head of hair. Long may he keep it! I thought the baldness gene ran thru the mom’s side – as in, your sons will have hair like their maternal grandfather and uncles? Unfortunately, Toxic Tom doesn’t have the best hairline
I can’t wait till they next release a photo of the kids. I’m sure they’ve changed a lot. I do applaud them for keep the kids private tho – so even a photo from behind would be fine by me LOL. Just show us this amazing hair!
They also say the bald genes are maternal, but I believe they have backtracked on that. I really don’t think it’s true. My husband inherited his receding hairline from his father. My son was getting a touch of it (luckily they have better remedies now and he addressed it right away, so he should keep his hair). NONE of the men on my side have it. My husband’s maternal grandfather had a thick head of hair until he died in his 80s. In our case at least, it seems to be paternal.
Think about Harry. Charles’ hairlines is receding but his uncle Charles Spencer’s is not. I don’t think the late Earl Spencer, Diana’s father, was prematurely balding either?
The elder Earl Spencer’s hair was definitely thinning. His father (Diana’s grandfather) had noticeable balding. Current Earl Spencer (Diana’s brother) surely gets his thick mane of hair from his mother’s side, the Irish Roches.
@KittenMom: “I can’t wait till they next release a photo of the kids.”
Don’t hold your breath. H&M tried to share photos and they released an unfortunately maligned first birthday video of Archie (to help promote the charity, Save the Children) remember? The rota and the deranged and obsessed folk on social media made this type of sharing impossible. Not to mention the psychos who lodged death threats. These set of circumstances are sadly the reasons why H&M wisely do not more regularly share their kids’ images publicly. We likely will not catch glimpses of them until possibly if H&M bring them to some events at Invictus in Vancouver. If the obsessive negative attention continues, we may never see them until their teens.
In fact, Prince Alfons of Liechtenstein, the son of Prince Maximilian and Princess Angela, was seen sparingly up to age 7. There do not appear to be any public photos of him after that time until he reached age 15.
Harry seems happy, not just content, with his life. How strong he must be to be willing to walk away from the only life he had known and how much love and trust he has in Meghan to start a life away from his upbringing. I’m glad it worked out for him! On a personal note, I would love to see updated pictures of the kids, but I respect their decision not to show them.
Diana had very thick hair – Spencer genes must have kicked in along with Doria’s good genes!
Diana did have a thick mane of hair. She had some fabulous blow outs.
Diana, like her siblings, most likely got her thick mane of hair from her Irish mother’s side, the Roches.
I have been so sorry that we didn’t get to see the little ones grow up. The last video of Meghan reading Duck Dinosaur to baby Archie was the last frontal full video of that darling, because of the hatred – which was started in Harry’s psycho family. The world was deprived of a lot of innocent joy, and replaced with evil. That is what the Royal Family is funded for. And M&H aren’t funded and do their best to generate good in the world. I understand their parents are keeping them safe, but it is sad.
Exactly, as you say. It is very sad, especially for us H&M admirers who appreciate their amazing kindness and goodwill toward others. Meghan is a person who always discreetly shared her life journey with bountiful joy. H&M tried to share Archie somewhat in his babyhood. Plus, in the Netflix documentary, there is a cute, full frontal view of a young Archie being bathed by his parents. Lots of glimpses and snippets of both Archie and Lili are in the documentary.
But remember how H&M were roundly criticized for sharing what they did of their lives when the documentary was first released? I recall a number of people (admirers and haters) saying they should pull back and go away for a while. When H&M did pull way back, there was loud clamoring and complaining about where they were and how dare they not put themselves on display for us?! 😏 🙄
I am sad, too, that we don’t even get to see H&M’s dogs much either. I am particularly fond of Guy, as Meghan shared him on her Instagram all the time in the early Toronto days with Bogart. I wonder how Guy is doing? He must be around 13 by now. Precious Guy was four when Meg adopted him from a rescue facility in 2015. I also wonder whether Bogart is still alive? He is Meg’s first dog that she adopted from an L.A. shelter, with the encouragement of Ellen Degeneres.
It’s sad, but I suspect that Bogart and guy have passed 😢Harry said they have three dogs that are not well house-trained.
I think their three dogs are Guy, Pula, and Mia, who was adopted after they moved to California. I do wonder what happened to poor Bogart. I read that the poor dog developed issues as a result of all papparazzi stalking Meghan and he could not be taken to UK with Guy. He was apparently adopted by one of Meghan’s friends or neighbours. So Meghan lost a dog and Guy lost his buddy too as a result of the rabid press intrusion. Very sad about Bogart. I must say, Guy seems such an endearing dog, as was the Obama’s Bo, who sadly has passed away. Michelle posted the news on social media.
Harry seems to have a bit of a hair fixation. He has locks of Diana’s hair in a box and spoke about how much he liked Kate’s hair in Spare.
Anyone who has seen Meghan’s childhood photos knows neither of the kids have her hair, especially Lili. Meghan’s natural hair is big and frizzy. Lili’s may have a bit of a wave to it, but it’s not frizzy.
Also Meghan’s current hair is chemically straightened and she has a wig and/or extensions.
Umm, what? Harry said in Spare, Charles and QE2 liked Kate’s hair. The locks of his mother’s hair were given to him AND Will by his aunt. Was he supposed to get rid of it? Meghan has very beautiful ethnic hair. Where is her hair frizzy? Your words sound dog-whistly. We saw Archie and Lili as babies. We don’t know how grown they are now or their hair.
As a man losing his hair, it is normal how happy he is with his children’s hair. Harry said when baby Archie didn’t have much hair, he was asking Meghan if he won’t grow any hair. He is probably insecure about his own hair like a lot of men.
Advantages of ethnic hair