James Hewitt, the dashing, polo-playing cavalry officer who had an affair with Princess Diana and bears a striking physical similarity to Prince Harry, has categorically denied that he is the young royal’s father.

Asked why the rumors persisted, Hewitt blamed the media, saying, “It sells papers. It’s worse for him, probably, poor chap.”

However, Hewitt himself has at times appeared to deliberately play up the story to raise his own profile; for example, telling the playwright Jon Conway for his 2015 production, Truth Lies and Diana, “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.”

Hewitt became the most famous of Diana’s several lovers after she told a BBC interviewer, in 1995, “Yes, I adored him. Yes I loved him. But I was badly let down.”

Hewitt betrayed her four years after the affair ended, when he cooperated on a book with Anna Pasternak and later announced during an interview with Larry King in 2003 that he was seeking to sell a clutch of 60 letters he had received from the princess for £10 million.

Although the copyright to the words belongs to Diana’s heirs, the paper on which the letters are written belongs to Hewitt, to do with as he wishes.

Rumors that he still intends to sell the letters persist.

Hewitt said the continuing controversy over Harry’s paternity is “probably worse for him.”

He made the comments as he was asked directly by an interviewer on an Australian television show, Channel 7’s Sunday Night program, if he was Prince Harry’s father.

Hewitt told Australian television host Melissa Doyle that Diana had “something special” about her.

He said they had spent time walking along the beach and cooking together, adding: “I think she was quite easy to fall in love with really, so I think I can be forgiven for that.”

The show also featured an interview with Princess Diana’s trusted butler Paul Burrell, who recently revealed he was marrying his long-term boyfriend, having divorced his wife last year.

Burrell showed a letter—first seen at the inquest into her death—that alleged Prince Charles was planning “an accident” for her in her car.

A passage of the letter runs: “This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous. My husband is planning ‘an accident’ in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry Camilla.”

When asked if these thoughts were her own or something she had taken from seeing clairvoyants, Burrell explained.

“Some of these thoughts did come from mystics, but you can’t get away from the fact that she wrote it. She took time to sit down and actually write down her fears.”