Prince Harry caught on camera fondling fellow redhead's bushy ginger beard

Prince Harry is a proud ginger, having overcome childhood bullying and nicknames like "carrot top" to embrace his natural hair colour.

So it was touching to see the Duke of Sussex share a joke with a fellow redhead during his action-packed outing to Nottingham with wife Meghan Markle earlier this week.

Harry, who appeared buoyed by the crowd's positive energy, took his time chatting to well-wishers, shaking hands and exchanging words.

One local in particular stopped him in his tracks, however. Hilarious photos show King Charles' son excitedly shaking the hand of a red-haired man with glasses, laughing and joking together over their similar colouring and facial hair.

Harry even broke with royal protocol by reaching out to touch the man's beard, clearly comparing it to his own.

The Duke of Sussex's struggles growing up with red hair 

While natural auburn locks are now coveted and celebrated for their uniqueness, growing up in Britain was challenging for those with the rarest natural hair colour, found in only 1.5% of the world's population.

Harry experienced this firsthand, becoming accustomed to cruel nicknames like "carrot top" and "ginge" during his school years at Eton.

The royal discussed his hair colour in a humorous exchange on the Joe Marler Will See You Now podcast, joking that the biggest misconception people have about him is his hair shade.

"People think I'm ginger, but I'm more sort of like sunset orange... like auburn," he teased.

Prince Harry's thoughts on her Spencer 'ginger gene'

He previously expressed his amazement that the gene was passed down to his children, Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five.

During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he admitted: "I actually really, genuinely thought at the beginning of my relationship 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!"

Cheering "Go gingers!", Harry credited the strong Spencer family line for both Archie and Lilibet inheriting red hair.

The strong family resemblance is all the more moving since Harry’s late mother, Princess Diana, was a strawberry blonde with a reddish tint to her fair hair.

In the 2022 Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, the Duke of Sussex spoke lovingly about how much his young daughter is growing up to look like his late mother.

"I see a lot of my mum in Lili. She's very Spencer-like. She's got the same blue eyes… golden-reddish hair," he enthused.

The history of red hair in the British royal family harks back to the Tudor times. The entire dynasty was famed for their distinct locks, from King Henry VIII to Queen Mary I.

Meanwhile, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson's eldest daughter, Princess Beatrice, famously inherited auburn hair.