Secret Baby Rumors That Have Plagued King Charles Over The Years

Royals having secret or illegitimate children is such a popular trope in literature and media that it's become almost cliché. Some famous examples include King Arthur, who sired love child Sir Mordred, and "Game of Thrones'" King Robert and Queen Cersei, who potentially had nearly two dozen illegitimate children between them. Such stories are typically inspired by British royalty, whose history is filled with kids born out of wedlock. In fact, the previous King Charles of Great Britain, Charles II, fathered at least 14 illegitimate children with multiple mistresses before his death in 1685. More than 300 years later, King Charles III has been similarly plagued by allegations that he has offspring besides Prince William and Prince Harry running around out there, but unlike his predecessor, the current king hasn't acknowledged any of them or even publicly addressed the — likely false — claims.

One such story dates back to 2000 when a Canadian woman named Janet Jenkins informed the National Enquirer that she had an affair with Charles during his marriage to Princess Diana. Jenkins claimed that they had unprotected sex during their numerous encounters, which took place across two decades, and that she became pregnant with her son, Jason, after one such rendezvous. While Jenkins didn't publicly proclaim that Charles was the father, her friends reportedly thought there was a good chance that this was the case. "Janet's son is the spitting image of William. They look like brothers, and I believe they are," one insider said (via the New York Post).

Jenkins' tale, however unlikely, isn't hard to believe for certain royal watchers considering that Charles infamously had an affair with his now-wife, Queen Camilla, while still married to Diana. But it's worth noting that some rumors have moved past the non-zero possibility level on the gossip scale and are firmly in the straight-up fiction category.

In 2015, The Globe tabloid published an outrageous rumor that King Charles III and Princess Diana's eldest child isn't William, the Prince of Wales, but a New England woman called Sarah. She was apparently born in 1981 from an embryo that was created using Diana's egg and Charles' sperm, which a doctor had secretly stolen and placed inside his own wife. As for how he got access to the embryo, the story claimed that Diana had to pass several gynecological tests to prove that she could carry children before marrying the future king, and one such test involved determining whether her eggs could be successfully fertilized. Sarah learned about the secret of her birth from a diary she found after her parents died in a car accident but ultimately chose not to speak out because she faced threats from people who didn't want the information becoming public. 

If that sounds like the plot of a novel, well, that's because it is. The rumor stemmed from the 2011 release of "The Disappearance Of Olivia" by Nancy E. Ryan, who once suggested her "story could have been true," according to the Daily Mail. While no actual Sarah came forward, another alleged secret child did. An Australian man named Simon Charles Dorante-Day previously went viral after claiming he was the love child Charles and Queen Camilla allegedly secretly welcomed when they were teenagers but then gave up for adoption. Like all the other wild claims, there are several holes in his story, such as Simon being born in 1966, four years before Charles even met Camilla, but this hasn't stopped the Aussie from publicly calling on the king to do a paternity test. At the time of writing, His Majesty has yet to do so, but suffice it to say that The Firm isn't losing any sleep over it.