Inside Prince Andrew’s fall from randy heartthrob to national disgrace & how he’s loyal to the King despite feud

IT may be hard for young people to imagine right now but four decades ago Prince Andrew was a national heartthrob.

Even before he won fame as a Falklands War hero Navy helicopter pilot in 1982, the Duke of York – Randy Andy to many – was the nation’s favourite male royal, a man capable of sending a frisson of excitement through a bar or restaurant when he walked in with his entourage and one of a string of glamorous girlfriends.

The contrast between then and now could not be sharper.

Andrew, 64, is the nation’s pantomime villain, a disgraced figure who sealed his own fate with a disastrous television interview that made him an international laughing stock.

But, as the spotlight falls on Andrew again with a new three-part Prime Video drama – A Very Royal Scandal, starring Michael Sheen – about his ill-fated Newsnight interview five years ago, what’s he really like? It depends who you talk to. 

Friends paint a picture of a devoted family man who is loyal to his pals. “I’ve seen him moved by the plight of someone and then immediately go around his wealthy friends and raise £1 million 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.

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 millionaire friend after he was embroiled in scandal.

That will 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, saying. “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.”

But others who have worked for or with him describe the late Queen’s second and favourite son as rude, thick, or pampered.

Foul mouth

His rudeness to police 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**k off.”

In his book Courtiers, journalist Valentine Low recounted how Andrew told one royal aide: “F**k off out of my office and f**k off out of my life.”

Diplomats accused him of boorishness when he was the UK’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, a job that helped earn him the nickname Air Miles Andy, along with his fondness for taking helicopter trips to golf clubs.

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-wife 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, Britain’s former deputy head of mission in Bahrain

Palace officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have been barely more complimentary. 

One senior royal aide found Andrew so lacking in self-awareness that 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 and, even after he was forced to stand back from official duties in the aftermath of the Newsnight interview, agreed for him to arrive with her at Westminster Abbey at a national thanksgiving service for the life of Prince Philip in March 2022.

Others in the family were furious but had to go along with it. It was her decision, despite their opposition, and they feared the consequence of portraying the Queen as an enfeebled old lady who had been manipulated by her son.

‘Pantomime figure’

One close aide who worked with Andrew and is perhaps still bruised by the experience, offers a slightly more balanced appraisal and feels others should also shoulder some of the blame for his downfall.

“The criticism was relentless. A lot of it was justified. Some of it wasn’t,” the aide recalled.

“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.”

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. 

“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.”