Explosive New Book The Truth About Prince Andrew

Author nigel cawthorne reveals the signs were there from childhood

- Nigel Cawthorne

With pressure mounting on Prince Andrew, a new book exposes how the scandal-prone royal was always on course to shame the monarchy. New Idea’s exclusive extract from Prince Andrew: Epstein and the Palace reveals how the Duke of York has been behaving badly and disappointing the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh since childhood.

According to recent polls, Andrew is unquestionably the least popular member of the Royal Family.

His appearance on [UK TV show] Newsnight – in which he defended his friendship with the American paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and failed to express sympathy for the multi-millionaire’s victims – has led to much mockery and disbelief. Corporate sponsors have deserted him. Charities no longer clamour for his patronage.

Even the Queen, Andrew’s greatest supporter, bowed to the inevitable: she told him he’d be losing his £249,000 [$450,000] taxpayer-funded salary and could now only appear in public at family events.

After a lifetime of doing whatever he wants, more or less with impunity, Prince Andrew is out in the cold.

“The problem with Andrew,” a senior Buckingham Palace official said in 2001, “is that his mouth engages before his brain does.”

How, I wondered, does one even begin to reconcile this unsavoury character with the much-adored Prince Charming of the past? Was he too easily influenced, or marked by some trauma? Or were the seeds of his misfortunes there all along?