We report the observation of the vacuum Rabi splitting of a single quantum emitter by measuring its direct spontaneous emission into free space. We use a semiconductor quantum dot inside a photonic crystal nanocavity, in conjunction with an appropriate cavity design and filtering with a polarizer and an aperture, enabling the extraction of the inherently weak emitter's signal. The emitter's vacuum Rabi spectra exhibit clear differences from those measured by detecting the cavity photon leakage. Moreover, we observe an asymmetric vacuum Rabi spectrum induced by interference between the emitter and cavity detection channels. Our observations lay the groundwork for accessing various cavity quantum electrodynamics phenomena that manifest themselves only in the emitter's direct spontaneous emission.