Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
The Sun’s documentary explores the legacy of Queen Elizabeth II and the controversies surrounding Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
It covers his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the Virginia Giuffre allegations, and the 2019 BBC Newsnight interview. The film details the stripping of his military titles, royal patronages, and HRH status.
Experts analyse his role as a trade envoy and the decisive actions taken by King Charles III and Prince William to protect the monarchy’s future and global reputation.
To ask whether Andrew’s choices has damaged the late Queen’s legacy is a really difficult question.
This was a man seen as a playboy many people say that he was her favorite child, he was the Nations’ darling .
Were the Queen and Prince Philip good parents ? well, we supposed they were good up to a point ,but there was always one rotten egg in the nest.
And Andrew was it.
Andrew’ is the sort of person you wouldn’t wish to meet,he’s arrogant, he’s bombastic, and it’s always ” me,me ,me.”
Things started going wrong when he met Jeffrey Epstein.
He loved the idea of money and lots of it.
Andrew had a degree of trust…
… In this man .
That really was the beginning of the end.
After all these years of getting what he wanted, he was now having thing taken away from him.
We believe that she did leave a ticking time bomb.
No one ever thought he’d be stripped of the title Prince.
That would never happened on the Queen’s watch.
She maybe had a weak spot for him , and maybe that she believed him a little bit too much.
If a story lasts longer than 10 days , you ‘ve got a problem here .
This story has lasted 15 years.
What made the late Queen such a onumental , incredible person her authenticity,it was her honesty, it was about duty,it was about sacrifice.
It was about service, and it was never about self when she was monarch.
It was her whole ethos, her idea that the monarchy must survive in order for it to survive, and the monarch must be seen to be doing the right thing .
In essence , it’s all about duty, it’s all about continuity , it’s all about being there for the peole, for the country, for the Commonwealth.
And she embraced all those things.
She was one of the most popular royals ever, all around the world.
But unfortunately,the Queen always had a PR problem with her son, Andrw.
Andrew’s the sort of person you wouldn’t wish to meet, he didn’t treat staff well he was not the sort of person that one liked.
Andrew was very good at hiding behind the mask, he gave off the impression that he was a jolly nice guy, but behind it all, his arrogant , he’s bombastic.
Wheter it was behind the scenes , on his charity work, his business pitch at the palace, who just said he had a general sense of entitlement about him .
People have yet to meet someone who’s worked with him who ‘s said he was absolute charm personified and a wonderful man to work with.
He had an attitude towards people.
He’s rude to anybody that, for want of a better word, up at his level.
So,you ‘ve got to be either a girl his dating or a member of the royal family for him to talk to you politely.
Some believe that there was a total lack of awareness, self- awareness, way back, even in his very early days as a youngster, it was always.
It was always , me, me , me.
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip proudly introduced Prince Andrew,he was the first prince to be born to a reigning monarch in over 100 years.
He was born , Buckingham Palace , so ,therefore, the reality is he’s always had that sense of entitlement.
Many people say that he was her favorite child,
well, maybe he was ,but the truth of it is that he was the first born at time when she was at last comfortable with the role.
We’ve got to recognize that the late Queen’s first family, Charles and Anne, came at a time when the king was very ill.
The Queen was standing in for him, and then he died in 1952, and after the coronation, she flew off around the world to visit Commonwealth countries which she was still head of state.
So, it was a difficult time for her in establishing a relationshipher first two children, but when the other two came along in 1960 and 64 respectively, Andrew and Edward.
By that time, all the big stuff had been done and the Monarchy had settled down into a sort of regular routine.
Both had more time as parents with their children,so, supposedly Andrew took adavantage of that.
I’ts no doubt that Elizabeth had a blind spot for Andrew.
He was always around when other children , like Charles, even Anne or even Edward were not around as much.
He was always made her laugh, and he lived very, very close, so, there was a sese that he had a lot of time for her and she had a lot time for him .
It was love, a mother – son love.
When Andrew came back from the falklands War .
you remember that vivid photograph and footage with him with the flower in his mouth, getting off the ship.
he was a hero, he was undoubtedly somebody brave , courageous, was prepared to put himself on the line and people respected that .
He was also at that time, as prince Charles described him , the one with the Robert Redford looks, he was a good-looking guy.
Here we have this dashing , handsome prince ,this helicopter pilot, this war hero and at the end of the war, he steps off the ship and he’s got this red rose in between his teeth and he looks handsome , and the Queen is there to greet him.
The media were all over him.
They thought he was great,so clearly, she adored him.
The impression you got of him was that titles were very important to him, hierarchy was very important to him, and he very much struggled with the idea of being spare.
And really after the Falklands where he served Queen and country,struggled after that to find any real meaningful role for himself.
Even though Andrew was, you know , after Charles was the next in line to the throne for many years until Charles married and had children, he was ever really expected to take the thron.
And actually , every time Charles had, you know , first had William, then had harry ,that meant he was further down the line of succession.
He still regarded himself as very important , he never really truly recovered from being downgraded even though it was inevitable.
Andrew had 20 years in the Royal Navy ,he retired eventually with the rank of commander,not very high ,but it’s as far as he was going to go.
So, the duke was appointed trade envoy by the govvernment and it was about promoting the UK PLC,promoting British business abroad and actually , in some countries, this is really effective.
For example,
In Middle East countries where the rulers are members of the royal family,they much prefer talking to their equal , to another member of the royal framily.
Than they w would do talking to a politician, to a member of government.
So, yeah , he really did open doors in that way.
There started to be a drip- feed of negativity surrounding prince Andrew’s travel…
So ,he was undertaking quite a lot of travel as his capacity as a member of the royal family ,but also as the special trade envoy.
So , suddenly he became Air Miles Andy becaue of the trips he was making on aircrafts, he took advantage of that job, he was sent abroad to do a job of work.
But he would throw his golf clubs in the boot of the plane so that he would have time off to go and play golf, that was not his job.
He wants to play golf, he does it in his own time,not in the time of the taxpayer.
He managed to bring people together, but he was arrogant, Embassies hated dealing with him because as far as Andrew was concerned ,
Embassises were working for him , well,they weren’t working for him, they were orking for the British government, and for the people of the country.
He then started getting involved with all sorts of dodgy people,he’s one of these people you think of a cartoon character that’s been given a lot of money.
How do they depict it? they depict it as dollar signs rolling in the eyes ,that was a bit like Andrew, he loved the idea of money and lots of it.
Things started going wrong when he met Jeffrey Epstein in the early ’90s.
This guy had his own Island .
He had mansions in florida .
He had townhouse in New york, so this was a guy who was seen through a lot of money , that attracted Andrew like a fly to a flame.
He’d known Ghislaine Maxwell for quite a while and she was the one that introduced him .
And Andrew got sort of sucked into Epstein’s net.
Andrew would argue and did argue that he was invited Gihslain maxwell to events and he described Epstein as her plus one.
Rumors said it was much more than that , he was inviting them as a duo .
Epstein was in a lot of parties , he was at Royal Ascot . he was at parties at buckingham palace at Windsor Castle.
He stayed at Sandringham , all of these things are showing that Andrew had a degree of trust in this man which was either totally misplaced or he’s just felt like ” i’m going to do what i want to do .”
When he threw this just simple shooting party as he described it at Sandringham house that you know the staff were qute shocked,when they were poppers, lube, condoms all in every guest room for each of the guests.
The Queen would have been quite shocked that this was her house was being used in this way…
This is a man that loved his masseuses, he used to have guru come from India once a year with a whole load of staff and also when he would travel he’d always have massages after the flight.
There was one insident when he was in New York.
A larger masseuse lady turned up and he just sent her away,he said basically;
” get me a more attractive one”
And this is the type of character that he was developing into.
This was a man that as in his younger days was seen as a playboy, he was seen as always had attractive women on his arm.
It just seemed odd the way that he became as he sort of lurched towards middle age, rather gauche and unsavory.
He’s not the brightest bunny on the planet, but probably felt that because he’s prince Andrew , Duke of York, that he could get away with anything.
Palace were aware of the people that he was associating with ,but then again, there’s only so much you can do to say,” you can’t do that.”
And he would tell the people that are telling him “he can’t do it”to push off, it’s none of their business.
That the sort of person he was.
Andrew was not endowed with the greatest amount of intelligence.
the relationship between convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and the Queen’s son , Andrew , became public, and that really was the beginning of the end….
Of course , this photograph of Duke of York and Jeffrey Epstein was published.
And of course , Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted pedophile, a sex offender and of course , everyone was gasped, no one knew that this had taken place.
It was a total suprise , and almost the worst photograph you could imagine possible being published and republished and republished.
And it was relentless, the late Queen’s press secretary were working well into the night every weekend, dealing with another ” hand grenade .”
Something else being lobbed at them ,and they put that fire off , and then another fire would start somewhere else.
It was a story that just was not going away.
Alistair Campbell,Tony blair’s press secretary saying;
” If a story lasts longer than 10 days,you’ve got a problem here, you digging yourself a massive hole.”
Again- this story has lasted 15 years.
And then what happens? that Fotograph of Andrew with Virginia Giuffre,
A women who accuses him of some very serious crimes was published.
That led to perhaps Andy’s first punsihment , that led him being dropped as a government trade envoy.
It was a job that saw him travel around the whole world promoting UK trade,it made him rub shoulders with leaders,businessmen,politicians from the four corners of the globe.
He enjoyed it , he was known as Air Miles Andy.he loved flying around the world being having the life of luxury, and it was taken away from him.
It is extraordinary that we knew these about Andrew , it’s incredible that it wasn’t dealt with then, it was such a huge scandal at the time.
And somehow he’s gotten away with it for so many years , you could see the car crash happening…
Be fair to her and to be fair to the prince of Wales as he was now the king, Andrew said categorically that he was innocent,
that he hadn’t done these things.
He had a meeting with the king Charles when he was prince of Wales he said , “no , it’s all untrue.”
He would have done exactly the same thing to her late majesty,and she clearly believed him .otherwise, that action would have been taken much earlier .
In any scenario like that , you’ve got to establish a fact,but you can only get the facts on information that’s given to you.
And now of course we have learned only this year, that in 2011, he actually sent an email to Jeffrey Epstein saying basically.
” you know , we’re in this together ,stay strong”
So ,it would have been very difficult for the Queen because she was being given information which clearly only half truthful.
Over the years, more and more and more came out about not only .Jeffrey
Epstein and his depravoty, but also Andrew’s links to Jeffrey Eptein.
And so , after Epstein died there ws a huge groundswell of oppinion that.
” hey . Amdrw meeds to explain himselfif i he’s inncoent of if he’ s guilty ,he needs to come forwrd and tell us what he knows.
And unbelievble , he did.
For him to agree or to be persuaded to appear on Newsnight with with Emily Maitlis ,who does not suffer fools gladly at all, some find this absolutely extraordinary…
If you want to rehabilitate yourself and you wanthed to get you side of the story over, don’t choose Newsnight.
Do something like ,you know, Harry and Megan did.
Do sort of Oprah, do something soft.
Do something gentle, do something that, you know ,you know , is not going to hav its claws out for you .
Well, no one couldn’t believe it was actually happening, no one couldn’t believe that it was allowed to to happen.
The Newsnight interview , as we know now, was all about Andrew’s association with Jeffrey Epstein.
As far as Andrew was concerned, he really wanted to promote one of his ideas.
It was an organization called Pitch@Palace.
It was a there to help young entrepreneurs kickstart their ideas into business and into fruition,and more often than not , it actually worked.
But news people being news people, didn’t see a story there and decided maybe an interview about his association with Jeffrey Epstein would be better.
And they put it to Andrew, and after much humming and hawing, he agreed to do it, clearly the Duke was keen to get his story across .
and he thought” okay this is my time to shine”
He would haave tld his mother he was doing an interview for television BBC. Not necessarily the subject matther .
His daughter thought it wouldbe okay, his private secretary thought it would be okay, and Andrew , off the back of that , thought it would be okay.
The trouble is that it wasn’t okay.
There were almost ridiculous points in that intervie.
“going to pizza Express in Wolking is unusual thing for me to do”
The lines about not sweating , which have to say, it made some skin crawl a bit.
“I…i..have a peculiar medical conditions, which is that i don’t sweat , um or i didn’t sweat at the time.”
“Is there anything you feel has ben left unsaid that you would like to say now?”
That was his massive opportunity to say,” my thoughts and prayers are with the victims who have been trafficked , who have been exploited, you know in any set of circumstances”
But he shose to say ” no , i don’t think so “
Andrew definitely underestimated Emily Maitlis, he underestimated what Newsnight’s agenda was,which is essentially was to just expose him if he was lying, and also put him on the spot.
And she did that ,it was absurd, he thought he’d actually done a good gjob,and told the Queen they had.
After the Newsnight interview ,the public went wild.
Everyone was horrified by what he said ,and also what he didn’t say.
Action had to be taken, Quite rightly , Andrew stepped back as a working royal.
How could he continue being a working royal after watching that Newsnight interview ?
And he had to give up, or forced to, requested .
Whichever way you want to say it, he lost his patronages .
He also lost quite a lot of business links , Pitch at the Palace was something that he absolutely adored, that slowly disappeared , and ultimately was abandoned.
But it was a wake-up call for Andrew ,because he realized that after allthese years of getting what he wanted .
he was now having things taken away from him.
The Queen acted decisively and quickly after that by stripping the titles, military affiliations away from the Duke of York.
He would have been humiliated and devastated, every member of the royal family has some sort of military affiliation, and he was a serving member of the Royal Navy.
To have those titles stripped from him so publicly must been a severe blow to him and to his ego.
It would have been something that she would have been reluctant to do ,but realized that it was something that she had to do.
Because he would not have been allowed to get away with what he did get away with having said on television.
To the world , his friendship with a sex offender,
Allegations that he had sex with Virginia Giuffre.
He’s never been found guilty of anything ,he hasn’t been charged with anything.
But the Queen would have been very , very upset by doing what she did inbasically fire him from his role as a working member of the royal family.
Of course, we’ve always asked about this story , about his relationship with Virginia Giuffre, he’s always denied, he’s always denied it.
It’s really important to say , there was a settlement that was made but he’s never ever accepted that he’s at fault, he’s always denied the allegations.
It took her another 2 years to strip him of all the honorary positions and honorary military positions.
In early 2022, Andrew had insisted that he would fight the civil action brought by Virginia Giuffre,
This sent Buckingham Palace into panic mode, quite frankly.
It raised the issue that what raised the idea that the very notion that Andrew could appear in a court and be questioned by prosecutors.
And have to face up to what Virginia Giuffre alleges face- to face in a court.
It was also coming in what would have been Queen Elizabeth ll’s Platinum Jubilee year,there’d be a trial in New York during all the celebrations and commemorations for her wonderful reign.
So, Andrew was summoned to Windsor Castle to meet his mother.
He was with a friend and a lawyer, the friend and lawyer was made stand outside ,and Andrew was summoned inside.
That’s where he was told,” if you going to persist with this case, then we are removing your HRH title, we are removing your royal patronages.”
Basically telling Andrew that if he carries on going , he’s on his own.
Two of the aides or senior courtiers insisted on being in the room at the same time, two men that didn’t really like Andrew,didn’t have very much respect for him whatsoever.
To have them there in the room while his mother stripping him of his privileges and titles and his patronages Would have been hugely humilating to him personally.
But at the end of the day, you don’t really have a lot of sympathy for him.This is all totally self- inflicted.
He was mature enough guy to understand that what he was doing,who he was associaating with,that was going to end up being damaging for the Royal family and hugely damaging for himself.
It was really hard for the Queen ,
But she was supported by Charles and by William.
The key player in a lot of this action against Andrew was Prince William .
There was one moment when after he’d lost his titles and then he was going to be at the Garter Ceremony as a knight of the Garter and William said ;
” as also knight of the Garter, well, i’m if he’s there , i’m not going”
That showed you the power that William as a future king has.
There’s no love lost between him and his uncle.
Because that would have put the Queen in an very invidious position with Charles ,with William, by her side, she did the right thing.
Despite the Newsnight car crash, the Queen did stand by her son.
In both public and private, she may had a weak spot for him and maybe that she believed him a little bit too much.
You got to remember that this is her son .
So, like any mother does, she was willing to be loyal to Andrew.
Andrew escort the Queen to the memorial service for Prince Philip, that was a big,big statement by the Queen that she still had faith in her son.
Whilst all around was saying ” No, it’s over” she still wanted them to say:
” well,he’s my son,he has a place in the royal family”
That was the moment she sort of declared her colors really publicly.
Fact that the Queen would go riding with Andrew, the fact that it would be known amongst the other courtiers that he would be spending time with his mother for afternoon tea.
There was difficult for them to say to her what she had to do, but they did.
Sources close to Andrew and the Queen were saying ,this relationship, his not told the full truth and it damaging the monarchy.
She wasn’t listening and by that stage in the ’90s , she didn’t want to hear it.
There’s no doubt that since the Queen passed, more decisive action has been taken, the king stripped him completely of everything.
It would have been a v ery difficult decision , the late Queen left him with a ticking time bomb that this is something was going to have to happen sooner rather then later.
Both William and the king felt things needed to change, but things happened very quickly after the email uncovered by Channel 5 that exposed Andre as a clearly proven liar that he had issued an email to Epstein after 2010.
And said” we’ll play again.”hugely damagin for him.
but the most important thing is that it proved that he’d lied in the Emily Maitlis BBC Newsnight interview.
William and Charls by that stage had frankly had enough, William particular thought that having an association with prince Andrew.
Andrew Mountbatten – windsor, was a stain on the brand and the stain on the monarchy.
No one ever thought he’d be stripped of the title prince.
He has been strippedof the title prince.
It’s pretty devastating, but shows you decisive action .
That would never happened on the Queen’s watch or if the Duke of Edinburgh had been alive,because both of them would have said he was born a prince , he remains as a prince.
She went as far as she was prepared to go at the time given she was not a well woman, she was becoming frailer by the day.
She had an ability as which we’re led to believe that she had cancer of the bones,so , she’d probably gone as far as she was prepared to go given the state of her condition.
Royal Lodge has been his home for quarter of a century, he spent millions of pounds on it when he first moved after the death of the Queen mother.
It is his home , to for anyone to be thrown out of their home whether larger or small in your mid- 60s must be pretty damning .
He is leading a very lonely and solitary life, it’s going to be living at Sandringham in very much like comparison to Royal Lodge where he’s got 30 rooms and 90 acres of land.
It’ ll be considerably smaller.
For Andrew it has been the absolute downfall , from grace ,he’s lost everything.
There ‘s a sense that he’s been abandoned by Sarah.
Reports that his youngest daughter Eugenie, really doesn’t want to have anything more to do with her father .
He’s lost hos home.
He has lost his charitable causes,his business initiatives , many, many friends along the way.
His lost his place.
Not just on the Buckingham Palace balcony but around the family table at family events, He is resigned to a life in exile now.
Epstein is haunting him from the grave, it’s not going away, never will go away
With the death of Virginia Giuffre,that too is still haunting him .
The problem with the royal family is that there will be a drip , drip feed on more emails and more photographs on Epstein .
To ask whether Andrew’s choices has damaged the late Queens legacy is a really difficult question .
In years to come that idea may grow a little bit more.
The Queen was looking after her son, she believed it was the right thing to do , she maybe was not furnished with all the information.
She may have been lied to, her son, her son may have lied to her,she may not have fully understood what was coming down the road.
She did take action, the things that she did matter after the Newsnight interview and in 2022 when she summoned her son to Windsor Castle.
These things were epic at the time, these things really did change Andrew’s direction and in many ways save the royal family
Cuz if they’d letyt it rumble on, it could have got even worse, it could have dragged the monarchy under.
It was the Queen’s decision ultimately not to be more drastic with the way that he was dealt with.
But she had so much credit in the bank , if you like, that didn’t really impact upon her legacy.
People did have a certain sympathy for her , she had all of this personal, this personal stuff played out on a global stage, and she was sort of entering the twilight of her reign.
She didn’t want to have this overshadowed for all the most extraordinary work that she’s done in the years she’s ben monarch.
One thing that is important to differentiate when it comes to any royal scandal is that the monarchy is essentially the monarch -that’s it. there is a difference between royal family,the firm and the monarchy.
and the rest is the noice….
It was clearly damaging , but, the wider monarchy was focused very much on prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein.
But,no other member of the royal family who are, continuing to undertake engagements want to have,you know, the shine taken off what they’re doing.
it is a massive distraction, the Queen wasn’t walking in the Central park with a convicted pedophile, the Queen was here as our head of state doing her duty.