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Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

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I could have worse tags than ‘Air Miles Andy’, although I don’t know what they are.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, (Andrew Albert Christian Edward; born 19 February 1960), formerly known as Prince Andrew, Duke of York, is the third child and second son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; his elder brother is King Charles III. A former close associate of Jeffrey Epstein, in February 2026, Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

Andrew served in the Royal Navy as a helicopter pilot, the captain of a warship and saw active service during the Falklands War. In 1986, he married Sarah Ferguson and became Duke of York. They have two daughters: Beatrice and Eugenie. The couple separated in 1992, and divorced in 1996. As Duke of York, Andrew undertook official duties and engagements on behalf of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. He served as the UK's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment for 10 years until July 2011.

Virginia Giuffre (originally Roberts) claimed that, as a 17-year old, she was sex trafficked to Prince Andrew by the American financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The prince denied any wrongdoing. Following criticism for his association with Epstein and his interview with Emily Maitlis in a November 2019 special edition of Newsnight, he resigned from public roles in May 2020, and his honorary military affiliations and royal charitable patronages were returned to his mother in January 2022. He was the defendant in a civil lawsuit over sexual assault filed by Giuffre in the State of New York, which was settled out of court in February 2022. He renounced his titles of Duke of York, GCVO, and KG in October 2025, though legally he still holds them, and lost his right to be described as a prince. His arrest in 2026 followed allegations over his former role as UK trade envoy and his contacts with Jeffrey Epstein.

Quotes

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  • It’s a simple answer. That’s my life. That’s what I expect. Right? That is because of who I am and that is because of the life of the family within which I’ve been brought up. So to me this state of affairs is not extraordinary. To anybody else who looks in, they think I’m bloody mad! But that’s what we do.
    • From Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, "Dinner with the FT: Prince Andrew", Financial Times (23 October 2009)
    • Describing his view of the his role as a member of the Royal Family fulfilling hundreds of engagements each year.
  • Please make sure that every statement or legal letter states clearly that I am NOT involved and that I knew and know NOTHING about any of these allegations. I can't take any more of this my end.
  • [On his military service during the Falklands War in 1982] So whilst I think back to a day when a young man went to war, full of bravado, I returned a changed man.
  • I put away childish things and false bravado and returned a man full in the knowledge of human frailty and suffering.
  • My reflection makes me think even harder and pray even more fervently for those in conflict today, for those family’s [sic] torn apart by the horrors they have witnessed.

"Prince Andrew & the Epstein Scandal" (2019)

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Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis (broadcast 16 November 2019).
  • [T]he people that I met and the opportunities that I was given to learn either by him or because of him were actually very useful.
  • I kick myself for, on a daily basis, because it was not something that was becoming of a member of the royal family [...] And we try and uphold the highest standards and practices and I let the side down, simple as that.
  • If you're a man it is a positive act to have sex with somebody [...] You have to … take some sort of positive action and so therefore if you try to forget it’s very difficult to try and forget a positive action and I do not remember anything.
  • [Explaining that he could not have had sex with Virginia Giuffre (then Roberts) at the London home of Ghislaine Maxwell] I was with the children and I’d taken Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking for a party at I suppose four or five in the afternoon. And then because the duchess [Sarah Ferguson] was away, we have a simple rule in the family that when one is away the other is there.
  • [Explaining why he stayed at the New York home of Epstein, a convicted child sex offender, in 2010.] It was a convenient place to stay... At the end of the day, with the benefit of all the hindsight one can have, it was definitely the wrong thing to do. But at the time, I felt it was the honourable and right thing to do. And I admit fully that my judgment was probably coloured by my tendency to be too honourable but that is just the way it is.

About Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

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  • I met him [Prince Andrew] several times, including once at a state banquet where after dinner, I and my husband and another Labour cabinet minister had a drink with him, and I have to say the conversation left us slack-jawed with the things that he felt it was appropriate to say.
It was a state dinner for the Saudi royal family and he made racist comments about Arabs that were unbelievable.
The fact he thought we might find this amusing was sort of a terrible situation to be in. I don’t think he’s very bright. I don’t think he really understands the way in which he behaves. He’s the worst end of the royal family, I think.
I am not going to tell you exactly what he said but it involved a comment about camels. It is as worse as you could imagine.
  • (Former royal protection officer Paul Page speaking about the duke’s private apartment) It had about 50 or 60 stuffed toys positioned on the bed. And, basically, there was a card the inspector showed us in a drawer, and it was a picture of these bears all in situ on the bed. And the reason for the laminated picture was that, if those bears weren’t put back in the right order by the maids, he would shout and scream and become verbally abusive.
"The Widow Capet" ~ Peter Hitchens and Mary Kenny
  • Andrew, unfortunately, exhibited classic symptoms of what is scientifically recognised as the Dunning-Kruger effect, the cognitive bias in which people come to believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. The combination of minimal self-awareness and dim wattage leads sufferers of this condition to overestimate their own capabilities. Years of enjoying unearned obeisance to his royal position allowed Andrew to bang on with a combination of overweening self-confidence and unchallenged ignorance. It also made him an easy mark for con men and crooks.
  • I have learned with the deepest concern the news about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and suspicion of misconduct in public office.
    What now follows is the full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities. In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation. Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.
    As this process continues, it would not be right for me to comment further on this matter. Meanwhile, my family and I will continue in our duty and service to you all.
  • On 10 March 2001 we were in London, staying at [Ghislaine] Maxwell’s pied-à-terre – a white mews house a short walk from Hyde Park.
  • In the years since, I've thought a lot about how he behaved. He was friendly enough, but still entitled – as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright. I drew him a hot bath. We disrobed and got in the tub, but didn't stay there long because the prince was eager to get to the bed. He was particularly attentive to my feet, caressing my toes and licking my arches. That was a first for me, and it tickled. I was nervous he would want me to do the same to him. But I needn't have worried. He seemed in a rush to have intercourse. Afterward, he said thank you in his clipped British accent. In my memory, the whole thing lasted less than half an hour.
    The next morning, Maxwell told me: "You did well. The prince had fun." Epstein would give me $15,000 for servicing the man the tabloids called “Randy Andy”.
  • My second encounter with Prince Andrew took place about a month later, at Epstein's townhouse in New York. Epstein greeted Andrew and brought him to the living room, where Maxwell and I were sitting. Another one of their victims, Johanna Sjoberg, arrived soon afterward. Maxwell then announced to the prince that she'd purchased him a joke gift, a puppet that looked just like him. She suggested we pose for a photo with it. The prince and I sat down next to each other on the couch, and Maxwell put the puppet in my lap, positioning one of its hands on one of my breasts. Then she put Sjoberg on the prince's lap, and the prince put his hand on Sjoberg's breast. The symbolism was impossible to ignore. Johanna and I were Maxwell and Epstein's puppets, and they were pulling the strings.
  • I don't know exactly when I had sex with Prince Andrew for the third time, but I do know the location: a 72-acre island Epstein owned in the US Virgin Islands. The private sanctuary, right next to Saint Thomas island, was called Little Saint James, but Epstein liked to call it "Little Saint Jeff's". I also know that it was not just the two of us this time; it was an orgy. "I was around 18," I said in a sworn declaration in 2015. "Epstein, Andy, and approximately eight other young girls and I had sex together. The other girls all appeared to be under the age of 18 and didn't really speak English. Epstein laughed about how they couldn’t really communicate, saying they are the easiest girls to get along with."
    Since I gave that account, Epstein’s pilot has said in a deposition that a coded notation ("AP") that he made on his flight log for 4 July 2001, referred to Prince Andrew. He said that Epstein, the prince, another woman and I flew from Saint Thomas that day back to Palm Beach. I guess it's possible that the orgy I remember occurred in the days leading up to that flight, which would mean I was still 17. I'll probably never know the date for certain. What I do know, because Epstein told me, is that Jean-Luc Brunel, the French modelling agent who was also in attendance, supplied the other girls who took part.
  • Is this a Marie-Antoinette moment for the British monarchy? What first triggered animosity against the queen of France was a slew of excited publications stressing her extravagance and indulgence in flagrant luxury, as well as her alleged sexual decadence (an entirely false claim). Before being guillotined, her name was humiliatingly demoted – just like Andrew's – to "the Widow Capet".
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