ANDS DOWN
Inside Prince Andrew’s fall from heartthrob war hero to national disgrace – by those who knew him
Watch the video above to hear how the latest Netflix drama has piled more pressure on the prince
INSIDERS have offered a glimpse inside Prince Andrew's dramatic fall from grace - and what the shamed royal is really like behind closed doors.
It may be hard for some people to imagine now, but four decades ago Prince Andrew was a national heartthrob.
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Even before he won fame as a Falklands War hero Navy helicopter pilot in 1982, the dashing and glamorous Duke of York was already Britain’s favourite male royal.
Things could not be more different today.
Andrew, 64, is now the nation’s pantomime villain - a disgraced figure who sealed his own fate with a car crash TV interview that made him a laughing stock.
The spotlight has now fallen on Andrew again with a new three-part Prime Video drama - A Very Royal Scandal, starring Michael Sheen - about his infamous Newsnight sit-down five years ago.
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But what is the shamed royal really like? It depends who you talk to.
Pals paint a picture of a kind and devoted family man who is fiercely loyal to his friends.
“I’ve seen him moved by the plight of someone and then immediately go around his wealthy friends and raise £1million to help,” one said a few years ago.
It was his loyalty to Jeffrey Epstein, the Duke would argue, that got him into this mess.
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Andrew - who still denies claims he had sex with young women procured for him by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, despite reaching an out-of-court settlement with one - refused to desert his paedo pal even after his conviction.
That excuse did not wash with the public, but he still has his defenders.
One friend described Andrew, who was second in line to the throne when he was born, as fiercely loyal to his brother the King.
They said: “I have never heard him say anything negative about his brother or indeed any member of his family. It’s just not something he would do.”
Sick question Prince Andrew asked Emily Maitlis before infamous Newsnight interview exposed in A Very Royal Scandal
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But others who have worked for or with him describe the late Queen’s second and favourite son as rude, thick and pampered.
FOUL MOUTH
His rudeness to cops protecting him and to palace servants is legendary.
In 2003 Ryan Parry, an undercover reporter at Buckingham Palace, told how when a footman went into Andrew’s bedroom to open his curtains and woke him saying: “Good morning Your Royal Highness”, the Duke of York replied: “F*** off.”
And journalist Valentine Low told how Andrew once blasted at one royal aide: “F*** off out of my office and f*** off out of my life.”
Diplomats also accused him of being rude and making inappropriate jokes when he was the UK’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment - a job that helped earn him the nickname Air Miles Andy for jetting around the world.
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Some also alleged that when he was trying to sell his former home, Sunninghill Park, he used official overseas trips to try to find a wealthy buyer.
Simon Wilson, Britain’s former deputy head of mission in Bahrain, complained the Duke jokingly accused his wife, who looked like Andrew’s ex Fergie, of touching him up.
He told one paper in 2010: “HRH the Duke of York was more commonly known among the British diplomatic community in the Gulf as HBH: His Buffoon Highness.
“This nickname stemmed from his childish obsession with doing exactly the opposite of what had been agreed in pre-visit meetings with his staff.”
Mr Wilson added: “He appeared to regard himself as an expert in every matter… Colleagues put this down to an inferiority complex about being mentally challenged.”
HEIRS AND GRACES
Sir Ivor Roberts, a former ambassador to Italy, Yugoslavia and Ireland, told how Andrew “rubbed people up the wrong way” on a trip to Italy.
“He met a representative from an extremely popular fashion house, Schiapelli, and asked who she was. ‘Never heard of you’, he replied.
“Andrew was full of his own self-importance and there was a lot of standing on ceremony,” he said.
He appeared to regard himself as an expert in every matter… Colleagues put this down to an inferiority complex about being mentally challenged
Simon Wilson,
Palace officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have been barely more complimentary.
One senior royal aide said there was no hope of trying to explain to him that his behaviour was damaging the monarchy.
Some found it frustrating that his mother Queen Elizabeth was for so long always willing to give him a second chance.
Even after he was forced to stand back from official duties in the aftermath of the disastrous Newsnight interview, Her Maj agreed for him to arrive with her at Westminster Abbey at a national thanksgiving service for the life of Prince Philip in March 2022.
But despite being left fuming, others in the family had not choice but to go along with the Queen's decisions.
'PANTO FIGURE'
One close aide who worked with Andrew said others should also shoulder some of the blame for his downfall.
They recalled: “The criticism was relentless. A lot of it was justified. Some of it wasn’t.
“He’s become a pantomime figure and I understand why. He painted an easy target on his back and for the most part didn’t even realise it - or if he did, he didn’t care.
“He comes from an era where he was the Queen’s son, for God’s sake.
“He was lauded and applauded. People bowed and scraped for decades. That’s got to affect your ego and I suspect he probably thought he was bulletproof.”
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The aide told Fabulous: “He grew up in a different era and then found himself suddenly helpless when judged by the standards of the 21st century.
“He had the biggest part to play in his own downfall, obviously, but you have to ask whether anyone around him over all those years should have taken him aside and told him to moderate his behaviour.
“You can beat yourself up about it but the truth is, I doubt he’d have listened.
“There’s a lesson for all spares to the heir in this, and the people who advise them.
“These guys are expected to just get on and do the job but they’re often woefully equipped to do it.
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“So it maybe falls to all of us around these people to do more of the heavy lifting, to try to keep them on the straight and narrow.
“The trouble is, at the end of the day, they’re adults. And they can be bloody obstinate adults.”
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'There is no way back for Prince Andrew', claims PR guru
PRINCE Andrew’s reputation is damaged beyond repair and he will never be able to engineer a return to public life, according to one of Britain’s top PR gurus.
Brand and culture expert Nick Ede, who runs East of Eden PR agency, called the shamed royal “deluded” for thinking he could ever return to royal duties and urged him to give up and ‘enjoy his life’ in exile.
It follows the release of Scoop - a Netflix movie based on the 2019 interview he gave to Newsnight.
Nick said: “There is no way back for him.
“I think you know this perpetual idea that he could still be back. Nobody cares. He hasn't got fans.
“There's nobody out there who's going ‘We want to see Prince Andrew’, not one single person. I think he has to realise that. But I think it's going to take a long, long time for him to actually understand. It's very deluded.
"In my opinion, the best thing that he could do is just enjoy his life. He's got gorgeous daughters. He has a great relationship with Fergie, he has a lovely house.
“Just live a quiet life.”
Reflecting on the interview five years ago - the fallout of which saw Andrew step back from royal duties "for the foreseeable future" - Nick compared the fallout to Frost vs Nixon and said he would have urged him not to do it.
He said: “If I had been advising him, I would say, go quiet, be quiet, just go to ground. You know you're a prince. Enjoy the life that you lead, but do not open this can of worms, because that's what it is.
“There was no admission that a relationship with somebody like Epstein was terribly toxic. There was no idea that there were loads of victims of trafficking whose lives were completely ruined by Epstein. He didn't seem to think that the association he had with that man was anything but positive.
“I think his worst gaffe was obviously being in that interview and agreeing to it in the first place, for not realising that he's actually going to be interviewed by a very, very good journalist who is going to ask him questions which he might not like.
“But I think what this has done is really shown how archaic Prince Andrew is in his opinions and thoughts.
"Read the room. He's never read a room at all.”
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