UNITED NATIONS, New York – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscored the conflicts in the Middle East as a choice between “a blessing or a curse” as he warned Iran’s “tyrants” about Israel’s ability to defend and avenge itself.

“If you strike us, we will strike you,” Netanyahu said. “There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that’s true of the entire Middle East: Far from being lambs led to the slaughter, Israel’s soldiers have fought back with incredible courage and with heroic sacrifice.”  

Netanyahu took the podium in front of a partially empty General Assembly, with some delegates walking out, but those gathered to hear him offered raucous applause ahead of his speech. Seemingly absent from the speech was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was hosting a global health security event on the sidelines of UNGA.

He revealed that he almost didn’t attend the U.N. High-Level Week, but that he felt a need to “set the record straight,” which included laying out the choice the world faces. 

Netanyahu brought several families with loved ones held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza to New York and once again called for their freedom, noting that, “I’ll say this one more time, we remain focused on our sacred mission, bringing our hostages home. And we will not stop until that mission is complete.”

THE ONLY THING NETANYAHU CAN DO IS EXUDE STRENGTH IN THE FACE OF HIS ENEMIES: ELIZABETH PIPKO

“Israel seeks peace,” Netanyahu said. “Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again – yet, we face savage enemies who seek our annihilation, and we must defend ourselves against those savage murderers.” 

Netanyahu framed the issue as a choice between “a blessing or a curse,” with Iran’s “unremitting aggression” as the “curse” against the “blessing” of reconciliation between Arab nations and Israel.

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“A normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel seemed closer than ever. But then came the curse of Oct. 7,” Netanyahu said. “Thousands of Iranian-backed Hamas terrorist from Gaza burst into Israel in pickup trucks, on motorcycles. And they committed unimaginable atrocities.” 

The prime minister hammered again on Iran’s aggression, warning that if left unchecked will “endanger every single country in the Middle East and many, many countries in the rest of the world.” 

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“Iran seeks to impose its radicalism well beyond the Middle East,” Netanyahu warned. “That’s why it funds terror networks on five continents. That’s why it builds ballistic missiles for nuclear warheads to threaten the entire world.”

“For too long, the world is appeasing Iran. It turns a blind eye to its internal repression. It turns a blind eye to its external aggression,” he added. “Well, that appeasement must end, and that appeasement must end now.”

Netanyahu called on the U.N. Security Council to “snap back” sanctions against Iran and do everything in the organization’s power to “ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons.” 

However, he lamented that the organization has an apparent bias against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians, citing the “automatic majority” of countries that will vote in favor of any policy that hurts Israel.

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“For the Palestinians, this U.N. House of darkness is home court,” Netanyahu said. “They know that in this swamp of antisemitic bile, there’s an automatic majority willing to demonize the Jewish state on anything in this anti-Israel, flat Earth society. Any false charge, any outlandish allegation can muster a majority.” 

“It’s always been about Israel, about Israel’s very existence, and I say to you, until Israel, until the Jewish state is treated like other nations, until this antisemitic swamp is drained, the U.N. will be viewed by fair minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous force,” he added. 

It’s the Third World meets Bangkok.

In “Squad” member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district in New York City, those who are described as scantily dressed migrant prostitutes line blocks of a long commercial strip during all hours of the day and night, brazenly soliciting sex to passersby while their pimps strike fear into local business owners, one of whom told Fox News Digital he’s been threatened for speaking out and is on the verge of closing his store.

The trash-filled streets of Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, which encompasses the migrant-heavy communities of Corona, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst, has become a veritable hotbed for one of the world’s oldest professions, and residents say that most elected officials and police are turning a blind eye to the neighborhood nightmare, which looks more like the famed brothel-filled red-light district streets of Bangkok than one of America’s biggest cities.

Illegal vendors also overrun the sidewalks, plying their hustle in what residents have likened to “Third World” conditions, cooking hot food out in the open devoid of any health certifications or inspections as hungry birds swoop down in search of leftovers and leaving their droppings along the way. 

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Known to locals as the “Avenue of the Sweethearts,” this epicenter of vice is not some desolate area on the outskirts of a city but rather the heart of the borough of Queens underneath the area’s main subway track that serves as a vital cog connecting Manhattan and its local schools to families, many of whom stream down the subway steps and are then inescapably met by armies of prowling solicitors. 

Fox News Digital even recorded a man pushing his young son in a stroller past a group of five sex workers.

Residents say that students pass prostitutes every day on their way to school or on their way to local taekwondo centers situated along the busy strip and that the situation has become the norm for their youthful eyes with the alleged sex workers, mostly composed of Asian and Hispanic women, filling the sidewalks. 

On Sept. 18, the NYPD raided a brothel just off Roosevelt Avenue and arrested three people. The following evening, Fox News Digital was conducting an interview in front of the raided premises when an alleged sex worker and her reported john casually walked out of the same building. 

On one block along Roosevelt Avenue, Fox News Digital cameras recorded a line of no less than 19 alleged sex workers on the sidewalk. Around the corner, there were at least seven more, and a woman on the next block was witnessed soliciting sex for $60.

Nearby, vendors sell everything from used clothes to pots and pans or tools. More recently, female vendors have begun cutting hair and painting nails under canopies on the cluttered sidewalks, with all of these illegal vendors operating feet from legitimate brick-and-mortar stores whose owners rage they are being undercut in prices while also having to pay taxes, unlike the illegal vendors.

Shoplifting and pick-pocketing is also widespread, business owners say, and there’s a sense here that lawlessness is breeding more lawlessness.

VIDEO: Curtis Sliwa, local activist, blast rampant prostitution on NYC streets, AOC’s district

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On Sept. 19, the day after the raid, Fox News Digital witnessed a man being arrested for allegedly groping a 17-year-old girl as she walked down the subway steps. 

In police handcuffs, he denied the accusations to onlookers. The girl, who was being comforted by adults, looked visibly shaken.

Ramses Frías, a local resident turned activist, is furious with the deterioration of his neighborhood and says “it feels like Bangkok with women outside locations and pulling men off the street.”

“This area has been run rampant with prostitution,” he told Fox News Digital outside the raided brothel. “It’s just been out of control and the lawlessness continues to happen.” 

“This doesn’t feel like my home. I’ve been here my whole life, and this feels like I’m a tourist in a Third World country. This is not how this is supposed to look, this is not how it’s supposed to feel,” he insisted. “This is a neighborhood and a community full of hardworking individuals, immigrants and second-generation Americans that worked really hard to be here and are facing all this evil and all these bad things. … And it’s just causing more issues daily and our quality of life just continues to drop.”

Seconds later, an alleged sex worker and her client emerged from the brothel.

A neighboring business owner then ushered Fox News Digital into his store, warning that “pimps” were watching via CCTV. The store owner did not want to be named but said he had reported the cathouse to police and had been threatened by those involved with the brothel. 

“I’m so scared, this is my business,” he said, adding that his business is suffering because customers are avoiding the area and will likely have to close because of it. 

Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels and a Republican candidate for mayor, says prostitution has exploded in the neighborhood after the pimps and sex workers were driven out of the nearby area of Flushing, well known for its Asian population. 

“It was never like this. It was a family area with a lot of retail,” Sliwa told Fox News Digital of Roosevelt Avenue. “The Chinese community pushed it out [of Flushing] and Asian cops were getting busted because they were on the take, so they just decided, the madams, bring the girls over here … and its open prostitution, 24/7. [It’s] lawless. Anarchy. You get to do what you want when you want.”

Two NYPD officers were busted in 2006 on bribery charges relating to the protection of a brothel in Flushing, and there are similar cases stretching back further. 

Sliwa says the police and New York City Mayor Eric Adams are not doing enough to clamp down on the racket. In January, the NYPD raided six establishments allegedly engaged in prostitution, which were issued closing orders. The raid was well publicized, with Adams and local Democrat City Council member Francisco Moya present. However, it appears to have done little to curb the problem. 

Sliwa slammed it as a “show raid” and said there were no arrests. 

“They didn’t arrest the johns, prostitutes, madams; they never went after the landlords, and they were back in business the next day,” said Sliwa, who joined Fox News Digital and Frías on a walking tour of the area. 

The Queens District Attorney’s Office confirmed that no arrests were made, saying it was strictly carried out to serve court closure orders of nuisance abatement over which the NYPD has jurisdiction. 

“This would never be tolerated in Manhattan. They tolerate it because it’s … a poor and impoverished area in the eyes of many New Yorkers, but that doesn’t give you a reason to allow this to exist,” Sliwa said. “This is so unfair … and the mayor is allowing a culture of corruption to exist. These police officers are on the takeIt’s the only way they could operate openly. They’ll say, ‘We deny that.’ Well, that’s what happened in Flushing and that’s why they pushed it over here.”

Adams’ office did not respond to a request for comment. The NYPD confirmed the three arrests after the Sept. 18 raid but did not respond to a request for further comment.

No police officers have been charged for being involved in prostitution in recent years. In 2018, seven NYPD officers — three sergeants, two detectives and two officers — were indicted in connection with an illegal prostitution and gambling ring in Brooklyn and Queens, which encompassed Roosevelt Avenue.

Separately, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell told Fox News that it suspects members of the brutal Tren de Aragua are linked to prostitution in the area, trafficking women into the industry to pay off the debts the gang is owed for smuggling them into the country. 

Meanwhile, the Queens District Attorney’s Office says it is working hard to stamp out prostitution and crime in the area, noting the office has “evicted 13 prostitution locations this year being used for illegal activity on or near Roosevelt Avenue.” The office says it’s in the process of permanently shutting down the raided brothel.

Of Ocasio-Cortez, Frías said the socialist lawmaker has not been seen in the neighborhood since she took part in a rally there in August 2023, where she condemned a city crackdown on illegally operating vendors and called for the city to issue more permits to those vendors. 

“She does not visit this area; this is actually an area where she campaigned the hardest and a lot of people went out [to vote] for her, and she doesn’t come over here. She has totally neglected us,” Frías said, noting that other local elected officials are rarely seen in the area, which is only represented by Democrats.

“So, we’re totally neglected, we’re here to fend for ourselves and this is what we have to do now. We’re going to organize. We’re going to have a rally coming up on Sept. 29, and we’re going to let our voices be heard and make sure that the city understands that they need to come over here and do their job,” he adds. 

VIDEO: Illegal vendors selling food and clothes clog up streets of AOC’s district: city council candidate

Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story or on a March story in which Fox News Digital brought attention to the neighborhood’s plight, featuring the additional publication of a now-viral video provided by Frías showing an almost endless stream of vendors with piles of clothes stacked along the streets.

Police swept the area days later and Frías – a former Democrat who is running for City Council as a Republican next year – said vendors have simply set up shop there again. 

Rep. Grace Meng, whose district also encompasses Roosevelt Avenue, said in a one-line statement, “Quality of life and safety issues need to always be addressed, and I remain in contact with the 110th precinct, Councilman Moya, our local community board and other local elected officials.”

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Frías also took aim at state Sen. Jessica Ramos, a Democrat who represents the area and is running for mayor. She has previously labeled prostitution on the strip as “survival work” and in 2019 co-sponsored a series of bills that would have decriminalized sex work and vacated the records of people arrested or charged with prostitution or related offenses.

Ramos told Fox News Digital she was happy to see the recent raid take place and pitted blame on the mayor for the unsavory situation, saying Adams’ office has been sidetracked by scandals rather than addressing the concerns of the community. 

“No one wants to see people selling sex, especially when they’re being coerced by traffickers. It’s unclear what took so long,” Ramos said in a statement. 

“The underground economy has spiraled out of control,” she added, referencing the illegal vendors. “Without work permits from the ‘feds,’ migrants need honest work to provide for themselves. The fact is the migrants are here, and they want to work.”

Meanwhile, Moya, who attended the January raid and has rallied alongside so-called “clean streets” advocates like Frías, said that his fellow Democrats are impeding efforts to shut down the brothels and illegal vendors. 

“I’ve lived my entire life in this district, and I’ve never seen it this bad,” Moya said of the prostitution. “After COVID, the situation has worsened significantly. The influx of migrants plays a part in this issue, as many have no other means of survival. The federal government has turned a blind eye to the situation and there’s only so much the city can do, since we don’t have the authority to grant work permits or legal status to those in need.”

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Moya said other elected officials have been calling up city agencies demanding that all enforcement stop.

“Some elected officials don’t see this as a problem, suggesting that ‘work is work’ and we should let it be. I believe that if a state representative wants to legalize prostitution, it should be done with strict rules and regulations, in designated areas like the city of Amsterdam – not in our community, especially near schools where children pass by and witness these activities daily,” he insisted. 

“I’m doing everything in my power to mitigate this issue, as you can see many have been investigated and shutdown – but what I have been doing is being undermined by these leaders who don’t recognize the urgent need for change. Yet, I assure you, I will not stop until significant change is made.”

North Carolina has removed over 700,000 individuals from its registered voter list, officials say. 

The State Board of Elections announced Thursday that 747,000 people have been removed from voter rolls in the last 20 months due to ineligibility. 

“The county boards follow careful policies to ensure that only ineligible records are removed, not those of eligible voters,” the Board of Elections said in a press release.

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“Meanwhile, newly eligible voters are constantly being added to the registration rolls in our growing state,” the board added. “Currently, North Carolina has nearly 7.7 million registered voters.”

A common reason for removal from voter rolls was moving residences — either within the state without notifying election officials or to another state altogether.

Other removed individuals failed to vote in the last two federal elections and did not respond to follow-up notifications from the government seeking to confirm their registration.

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Death, felony conviction, requests to be removed, and lack of U.S. citizenship were also listed as reasons for dropping individuals from voter rolls.

The Marist Poll released Thursday finds that Harris and Trump are tied at 49% among likely voters in North Carolina who were asked which candidate they were leaning toward. Of those polled who have made up their minds, 91% said they strongly support their choice.

North Carolina last voted for a Democratic president in 2008, when then-Sen. Barack Obama won the state by 0.3 points, or 14,177 votes. 

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Trump pulled out a convincing 3.7 point win in 2016, but that margin shrank to 1.3 points against President Biden in 2020. 

North Carolina began absentee voting for registered voters on Tuesday, having begun sending absentee ballots to military and overseas voters on Friday. Applicants do not need to provide an excuse to receive a ballot. 

The state must receive a ballot application by Oct. 29, and that ballot must be delivered to county officials by Nov. 5.

“Marginalized,” “powerless,” living in the “Twilight Zone.”

Parents of a trans teenager living in Geneva used those words to describe how they have lived in shock and fear over the last 19 months after their then 15-year-old daughter was removed from their home by court order following their objections to giving her puberty blockers.

Now, they are fighting under threat of criminal charges to preserve her identity and stop her from making potentially irreversible changes to her body.  

“This is not a question of human rights,” the father told Fox News Digital. “This is a question of conducting medical experiments on children.”

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The parents of the now 16-year-old – who wish to remain anonymous to preserve their family’s privacy – claim they have struggled to combat the institutional powers that have accused them of parental abuse for their refusal to give their daughter elective medicine.

The tumultuous journey began when the girl sat her parents down in 2021 and told them she identified as a boy.

“It was an absolute surprise. She was 13 at the time, and she had never previously demonstrated any inclination toward masculinity or any proclivity for masculine behavior ever,” the father explained.

The father – who said he and his daughter were always very close – detailed how she reached this conclusion following a difficult time for their family after first his work took him abroad for several years, and then the coronavirus pandemic hit.

The pandemic forced school closures, which meant increased isolation for kids around the globe, and a significant amount of time spent online.

“We said to our daughter, ‘Well this is a surprise, but we will listen to you, and we will seek medical advice. We will all learn together and make decisions together,'” he said.

At the recommendation of their child’s pediatrician, they took their daughter to the public children’s hospital in Geneva, where she was shown a “gender unicorn” and was asked to identify with various aspects of the image, after which it was determined that she was “likely experiencing gender dysphoria.”

The director of the ward then met with the parents and explained that the hospital was conducting “rigorous research” around the question of gender identity and that their daughter would receive a “comprehensive and serious assessment.”

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The advice was to “support her in her identity” by allowing her to cut her hair, dress as a boy and wear breast binders if that’s what she wished.

“And so, initially, we did that. We followed the medical advice,” the father said.

However, after seeing a psychiatrist at the hospital for a few months, the parents were told the next step they should pursue for their daughter would be to begin the use of hormone blockers – a medication that prevents puberty-related changes to the body, like breast growth.

“We’re not at the stage where we’re going to be giving our daughter any medication,” he said, reflecting on their response to the psychiatrist.

“We saw firsthand in our interaction with the hospital, that there was no serious medical assessment being conducted. It was simply, well your daughter has pointed to these elements on the gender unicorn, and therefore, she’s a boy because she says so,” he added, noting that they then sought out a private psychiatrist.

In response to Fox News Digital’s questions, the Geneva University Hospital (HUG) said they could not comment on individual cases but said in cases of gender dysphoria the hospital works “to promote dialogue between the child and his parents.”

Spokesperson for the hospital, Nicolas de Saussure, also said the “HUG does not push any patient in the direction of a legal or medical transition but supports them in their individual journey according to their values and preferences by referring to existing scientific data and international recommendations.”

According to the statement sent to Fox News Digital, the hospital has received roughly 100 minors with gender dysmorphia, about half of which have begun hormonal treatments after they have reached the age of 16. 

However, the father described a sense of frustration regarding what the parents felt was a lack of adequate medical care and support offered for their daughter and their family – a frustration that marked only the beginning of what would become a long and arduous journey as they struggled to maintain their parental rights.

Against the parent’s wishes, the private school their child attended began to “socially transition” their daughter and connected her with a transgender advocacy organization.

By the time their daughter was 15, a school psychologist – who she saw in addition to the private psychiatrist hired by her parents – reached out to the Swiss Child Protection Agency (SPMI) and claimed the minor needed protection from her “transphobic” parents following their continued objection to puberty blockers.

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“The school was facilitating meetings between our daughter and [the transgender advocacy agency], and our daughter and the SPMI – not only without our knowledge, but fraudulently because they were marking her absentee form as if she was doing school activities,” he told Fox News Digital. “We later found out she wasn’t. She was out of school meeting with [the transgender advocacy group] and meeting with the SPMI.”

The school, which Fox News Digital has not named for the sake of the family’s anonymity, rejected the accusation that it did anything untoward and said, “The school abides by Swiss law and complies with the decisions of the child protection authorities. 

“We refute all allegations implying otherwise,” a school official added, though questions regarding how the child was marked absent were not directly answered. 

Eventually, based on alleged mental and physical health concerns, a Swiss court decided their daughter should be placed in a supervised home run by social services known as a “foyer” – where the now 16-year-old has remained for more than a year.

“International law holds that a child shall not be separated from her parents against their will, except in cases of abuse,” legal counsel for ADF International, Dr. Felix Boellmann, said in a statement.

The father told Fox News Digital that it is still unclear to him and his legal team what abuse was identified in order to allow them to remove his daughter from her home. 

In return to Fox News Digital’s questions, Swiss authorities with the République et canton de Genève said they would not comment on “individual situations” but provided a broad response to Switzerland’s legal system. 

“The SPMI respects parental authority, unless the exercise of this authority endangers the child concerned, in which case it is up to the judge to decide the child’s best interests,” communications officer Constance Chaix said. “No child is removed from his or her parents because of ‘a lack of consent to the transition.'”

“No child is placed for lack of consent or opposition to treatment,” Chaix said.

A series of battles have ensued as the parents desperately try to maintain a relationship with their daughter and return her to their home.

But as their daughter continues to age, the harder the fight becomes. 

In Switzerland, minors are allowed to legally change their name and registered sex at the age of 16, which her parents fear could make it that much easier for her to physically transition.

“We’ve met too many other parents and kids who have been victimized and now regret the situation they’re in, in life. And we are up against these institutions,” he said, referring to the court, the school and the SPMI, which he argues have not taken an evidence-based approach when it comes to minors experiencing gender dysphoria.

“Our inclination was to not only, of course, follow doctor’s advice, but LGBTQI – everybody – we support that,” he continued. “But as we started to get educated about gender identity, we started to understand that this was not a question of sexual orientation, but a question of cosmetic surgeries, hormones and other sort of Frankenstein-like experiments on children.”

The father said the education system in Switzerland has put trans children on a “pedestal for being somehow more courageous,” which influences hasty solutions like puberty blockers that could have lasting consequences.

The effects of hormone blockers are reportedly reversible, though government institutions like the U.K.’s National Health Institute have noted the limited research there is on its use in children, and the unknown long-term effects it could have on physical development like bone density or reproductive health.

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“We [need to] start taking decisions based on facts and evidence instead of a radical, harmful ideology,” the father said. “This is not a question of human rights. This is a question of conducting medical experiments on children.

“I want her to come home so that we can get her back on a healthy track,” he said. “For her own well-being and that of her entire family.”

There was a tabloid rumor that left Princess Diana heartbroken.

For years, some have speculated that her riding instructor, James Hewitt, was Prince Harry’s biological father, not King Charles. Both Harry and Hewitt share ginger hair and freckles.

Richard Dalton, Diana’s hairdresser, told Fox News Digital that “it’s not possible.” Dalton has a new memoir, “It’s All About the Hair,” which details their friendship.

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“It was tough,” Dalton admitted. “Harry was already born a while before her relationship with Hewitt. And I don’t think it’s possible.”

“But no,” he stressed. “Harry and the Spencer family have red hair. Charles, Diana’s brother, had bright red hair when he was [in] college. And I used to cut his hair then. [Diana’s sister] Sarah, has bright red hair. [Diana’s other sister] Jane was more or less the same coloring as Diana.”

He also shared in his book that Diana “used to get very upset” with the tabloids insisting that Hewitt was Harry’s father.

“The red hair was a trait from the Spencer family,” he wrote.

According to reports, Diana first met Hewitt in 1986, two years after Harry was born in 1984. In his book, Dalton wrote that Diana and Hewitt had “a love affair” that lasted three years from 1989 to 1991. He stressed that Harry was born “long before Diana even met James Hewitt.”

When Diana started taking riding lessons from Hewitt, it confused Dalton, who thought to himself, “Diana didn’t like riding horses.” However, he understood that Diana was a young woman “longing to be truly loved.”

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“I knew nothing about their affair and was not involved with any of the rendezvous, other than maybe unwittingly doing Diana’s hair each day,” Dalton wrote. “She was certainly giddy at times when she talked about him because it was all new to her; however, we need to remember the context in which this all took place.”

“Diana was starved of affection and intimacy from her husband, the man she loved,” he wrote. “She was also an heir-making machine for Charles and was coming to terms with the betrayal within her marriage.”

“… It saddened me to see James Hewitt, by virtue of his tell-all book, clearly signal that this relationship was a conquest and not a matter of love at all. He got her at her most vulnerable and, for her, he was just the first man who rolled along – a twist of fate, time and place. If it had not been him, it would have been someone else.”

“He was certainly not the love of her life at the time, Charles was – there is no question in this matter at all,” Dalton added.

Renae Plant, curator of The Princess Diana Museum, teamed up with Dalton for his book. She told Fox News Digital, “It must have been horrific for Diana to be faced with the ongoing rumors.”

“She [couldn’t] come out there and say anything, but there’s all these rumors going around,” said Plant. “… She was tormented [by] the press and the hounding of all these stories.”

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Plant pointed out that Diana yearned to be like Dalton’s friend, British broadcaster Anne Diamond. She had a public platform to address any news to the public.

“[Anne] did breakfast TV,” Dalton told Fox News Digital. “Diana used to say, ‘Oh, I wish I could be like your friend when something detrimental is written about her. She can put it right on TV.’ But that’s not how it was.”

“She had to keep it all internalized and deal with it,” Plant chimed.

In 2023, Harry sued the Daily Mirror for using unlawful techniques “on an industrial scale” to score front-page scoops on his life. The British royal became the first senior member to testify in more than a century.

During the trial, the Duke of Sussex admitted that the longtime tabloid rumor speculating that the king was not his biological father was “damaging” to him over the years. In a written statement, the 40-year-old cited the 2002 article “Plot to Rob the DNA of Harry,” which speculated that the royal was Hewitt’s child.

“Numerous newspapers had reported a rumor that my biological father was James Hewitt, a man my mother had a relationship with after I was born,” Harry wrote. “At the time of this article and others similar to it, I wasn’t actually aware that my mother hadn’t met Major Hewitt until after I was born.”

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Harry said the paternity rumor was perpetuated in several articles.

“At the time, when I was 18 years old and had lost my mother just six years earlier, stories such as this felt very damaging and very real to me,” Harry admitted. “They were hurtful, mean and cruel. I was always left questioning the motives behind the stories. Were the newspapers keen to put doubt into the minds of the public, so I might be ousted from the royal family?”

In late 2023, Harry won his phone hacking lawsuit against Mirror Group Newspapers. He was awarded over $180,000.

In his memoir, “Spare,” Harry described how his father, 75, once made “sadistic” jokes about the painful gossip. For Harry, it was no laughing matter.

“Pa liked telling stories, and this was one of the best in his repertoire,” Harry wrote. “He’d always end with a burst of philosophizing … ‘Who knows if I’m really the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I’m even your real father?'”

“He’d laugh and laugh, though it was a remarkably unfunny joke, given the rumor circulating just then that my actual father was one of Mummy’s former lovers: Major James Hewitt,” Harry shared. “One cause of this rumor was Major Hewitt’s flaming ginger hair, but another cause was sadism.”

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“[The press] couldn’t get enough of this ‘joke,’ for some reason,” Harry reflected. “Maybe it made them feel better about their lives that a young prince’s life was laughable.”

In 2002, Hewitt himself addressed the gossip.

“I have been aware for a while that the issue of Harry’s paternity has been a major talking point,” said Hewitt, as quoted by People magazine. “There really is no possibility whatsoever that I am Harry’s father. I can understand the interest, but Harry was already walking by the time my relationship with Diana began.”

“Admittedly, the red hair is similar to mine and people say we look alike,” said Hewitt. “Looking at the pictures I would say he is a much more handsome chap than I ever was.”

He addressed the speculation once more in 2017 during an appearance on an Australian TV show. When asked if he could be Harry’s father, Hewitt stressed, “No, I’m not.”

“It sells paper,” said Hewitt about the rumor. “It’s worse for [Harry], probably, poor chap.”

KING CHARLES FELT ‘UNBEARABLE EMPTINESS’ AFTER PRINCESS DIANA’S DEATH

Dalton met Diana when she was just 17. He went on to style her hair for more than a decade. He hopes his book will introduce a new side to the late Princess of Wales – including her sense of humor.

“She would always keep fake vomit, and she’d put it into the private secretary’s briefcase,” he told Fox News Digital about their royal tour of Australia in 1985. “And dog poop – all kinds of things.”

The pair even got away with being naughty behind palace doors. Dalton described how Charles banned all aerosol sprays from Kensington Palace to help preserve the environment. 

The secret behind Diana’s royal mane was Elnett hairspray.

“We traveled with it a lot,” said Dalton. “… I got to the palace and said to the princess, ‘There’s a hole in the ozone.’ She said, ‘Really? What does it look like?’ I said, ‘About the size of your dressing room. And it goes straight out – that’s it, the Elnett hairspray.’ We had a laugh about it.”

“We kept using it,” he said. “I suppose [Charles] probably didn’t know anything about it… We escaped. I’m not in the Tower of London.”