21 most infamous royal family scandals

Mark McCormick EDI / Mirrorpix/Newscom/The Mega Agency When a single family is under as much scrutiny as the British royal family is, skeletons are bound to fall unceremoniously out of closets.
From the former Prince Andrew‘s epic fall from grace to various affairs, drug use and other lapses in judgment, here are 21 of the most infamous scandals to plague the royal family over the last century.MORE: Follow Wonderwall on celebrity.land for more top news

Ron Sachs – CNP / MEGA Anyone who’s seen The Crown knows that Prince Charles and Princess Diana had a deeply unhappy marriage and that the now-King was having an affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles for years while still married to Diana. At the same time, the late Princess of Wales had affairs of her own, including an alleged one with James Gilbey. In 1989, she and Gilbey spoke on the phone for 23 minutes while unknowingly being recorded. On the call, the man called the princess “Squidgy” a whopping 14 times, per News.com.au. In 1992, several tabloids obtained and published the full transcript of the conversation, igniting a scandal which would forevermore be known as “Squidgygate.”

Phil Loftus/Capital Pictures / MEGA Less one scandal than it is a series of scandals, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of royal privileges between 2019 and 2025 after it publicly surfaced that he had entertained a close friendship with the deceased s** offender Jeffrey Epstein. Most shockingly, Andrew was directly accused of sexual exploitation by one of Epstein’s most vocal accusers Virginia Giuffre. As a result, Andrew was stripped of his Duke of York title and later of his princedom. He was also kicked out of his Windsor residence.

ZUMA Press / MEGA Close to a century later, the abdication of King Edward VIII remains one of the royal family’s most enduring scandals — particularly given a) it was the first voluntary abdication in British history, ever, and b) it’s the single decision that gave way to Queen Elizabeth II and then King Charles II as our modern-day monarchs. Edward abdicated after just months on the throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson, who was a divorcée and therefore considered an unsuitable match for the King at the time. Edward’s brother, the late Queen’s father, King George VI, acceded to the throne after him.

MEGA TheMegaAgency.com The royal family has endured many scandals over the last century, but it’s hard to think of one that has generated quite so many headlines as what has been known as “Megxit.” Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had enough of the way they were treated as part of the royal family and vowed to step down as senior royals in 2020, starting their new life as private citizens in the Duchess of Sussex’s native California.

© MATRIXPHOTOS.COM / MEGA Diana had Squidgygate; Charles had Tampongate — a scandal which began just months after the late Princess of Wales’ private phone conversation with James Gilbey was leaked in 1992. Tampongate refers to a leaked phone conversation between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles while the latter was still married to Princess Diana. In said conversation, Charles jokingly professed his desire to “live inside [Camilla’s] trousers,” possibly as a tampon.

celebrity.land / MEGA After the former Prince Andrew‘s close friendship with s** offender Jeffrey Epstein came under scrutiny circa 2019, the disgraced royal was given the opportunity to explain himself during a lengthy sit-down interview with Emily Maitlis for the BBC Newsnight. During the 50-minute conversation, Andrew made some truly incredible claims, such as that he wasn’t able to produce sweat. The interview has been characterized as Andrew “digging his own grave” — and his life and reputation went downhill from there.

Mirrorpix/Newscom/The Mega Agency Many people found out about Princess Margaret‘s scandalous affair through Season 1 of The Crown, but when it happened, it dominated headlines. The young princess fell in love with royal equerry Peter Townsend, who was divorced and therefore regarded as an unsuitable match. When Margaret told the Queen she wanted to marry Townsend, he was “banished” from the country, and Margaret made a public statement announcing her decision not to marry him, as reported by TIME.

Tom Maddick / SWNS / MEGA A particularly brutal write-up from People, dated 1989, shows the extent of the rumors surrounding Princess Anne potentially cheating on her first husband (Captain Mark Phillips) with her second husband (Sir Timothy Laurence, then just a royal equerry and — as far as the public knew — Anne’s friend). While no salacious details were publicized about Anne and Laurence’s extramarital relationship, some of their “love letters” were stolen from the palace that same year — and it’s commonly accepted that the two, at the very least, were engaged in an emotional affair. Anne and Phillips separated later that year and divorced in 1992, with the Princess Royal and Laurence making things official that same year, per People. They’ve been seemingly happily married ever since.

TSC/Capital Pictures / MEGA Some televised conversations make history. In 1995, Princess Diana gave an interview to the BBC’s Martin Bashir, which is still being spoken about three decades later. That’s when the Princess of Wales famously said, “There were three of us in this marriage,” referring to Prince Charles‘ ongoing affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles. For context, Diana and Charles officially separated in 1992, but didn’t divorce until 1996. The interview is now believed to have been arranged in a manipulative way, per People.

Steve Finn/Capital Pictures / MEGA One thing about royal marriages… you can expect them to either feature rumors of extramarital affairs — or else the real thing. Technically, Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson‘s 1992 scandal fell somewhere in the middle, since she and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had already officially separated by the time photographs of her getting her toes sucked by her boyfriend, the American John Bryan, made it into the tabloid press. What most shocked the public about these photos is that 2-year-old Princess Eugenie was present in some of them.

ZUMA Press / MEGA When Princess Margaret divorced her husband Antony Armstrong-Jones, a.k.a. the Earl of Snowdon, she was the first British royal to do so, marking the first divorce of a senior British royal in over 400 years. Margaret’s marriage was famously fraught, with Armstrong-Jones repeatedly cheating on her, and her “retaliating” with a younger man called Roddy Llewellyn. The Snowdons announced their separation in March 1976 and officially divorced in 1978, per Harper’s Bazaar.

©RAMEY PHOTO AGENCY/Newscom/The Mega Agency Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, has been embroiled in — or at least on the sidelines of — many royal scandals in her time. In 2010, U.K. tabloid News of the World published a video of Fergie accepting a bribe from an undercover reporter in exchange for access to her ex-husband Prince Andrew. She accepted a payment of roughly $40,000 USD with the promise of a further $750,000 approximately, perOprah. Speaking about it with Oprah Winfrey later on, the duchess said, “There aren’t really very many words to describe an act of such gross stupidity.”

© GRAHAM READING / MATRIX / MEGA In 2005, a 20-year-old Prince Harry shocked the world when pictures of him attending a costume party wearing a Nazi officer costume made it into the press. Following the scandal, “I sat down and spoke to the chief rabbi in London, which had a profound impact on me,” the Duke of Sussex said in the 2022 Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan (via People). “I went to Berlin and spoke to a Holocaust survivor.” In his 2023 memoir Spare, Harry also revealed that a young Prince William and Kate Middleton had encouraged him to use the costume idea and had found it hilarious.

MEGA TheMegaAgency.com In early 2021, a freshly Californian Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sat down with Oprah Winfrey to set the record straight about their royal departure (the conversation aired internationally that March). They made a number of shock revelations in the interview, including: that rumors that Kate Middleton had made Meghan cry were unfounded and that it was actually “the reverse,” that Meghan had experienced suicidality while working as a royal, that certain royals had expressed “concerns” about Prince Archie‘s skin tone, and many more.

©2005 RAMEY PHOTO /X / MEGA Prince Harry has discussed his difficult youth at length in recent years — indeed, he lost his mother at just 12 years old, a traumatic event for any child. One of his low moments occurred when he was made to spend a single day in a south London rehab facility in 2002 after his dad found out that Harry was smoking weed and drinking alcohol, per The Guardian. He was 17.

The Sun / MEGA Thomas Markle was originally supposed to walk his daughter Meghan down the aisle at her 2018 royal wedding. He forfeited that privilege when he was found having staged paparazzi photos ahead of the big day. Today, the father and daughter duo pretty much do not talk.

©2012 RAMEY PHOTO/MEGA Though Prince William and Kate Middleton have certainly been at the center of some salacious and mostly unfounded rumors over the years, they’ve actually managed the remarkable feat of being only barely controversial since their 2011 royal wedding… except for one incident. In 2012, Kate and Wills were enjoying a private vacation when, unbeknownst to them, photos of the Duchess of Cambridge sunbathing without a top were snapped. The French magazine Closer published said photos and apparently, it’s the angriest people who know William have ever seen him. The royals sued and won.

Andrew Young / East Anglia News Service / MEGA Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s reputation has been in free fall for years, but a particularly low point occurred when he became the first modern senior royal to ever be arrested. On his 66th birthday in February 2026, Andrew was taken in for questioning, having been arrested “on suspicion of misconduct in public office,” per BBC News. The public office in question was his post as U.K. trade envoy between 2001 and 2011. Even at the time, he stepped down over — you guessed it — his ongoing relationship with the late s** offender Jeffrey Epstein, per celebrity.land. It would take close to another decade for Andrew to lose his royal titles.

JOR/Capital Pictures / MEGA The late Queen Elizabeth II is often quoted as having dubbed 1992 her annus horribilis, a.k.a. a “horrible year.” For one thing, her year was so terrible because three of her children separated or divorced from their spouses that year: Prince Charles, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew. There was also a fire at her childhood home, and the tabloids were particularly unkind with the royals over those 12 months, per TIME.

JOR/Capital Pictures / MEGA On January 10, 2023, Spare hit bookshelves around the globe, giving us previously unheard-of insights into the way The Firm operates — and into Prince Harry’s own personal life. Some of the most astounding revelations included: Harry’s alleged physical altercation with brother Prince William over Meghan Markle, the fact that William and Kate Middleton had known about his infamous Nazi costume beforehand and encouraged it, several drug use admissions and more, per Town & Country.

MEGA TheMegaAgency.com In March 2021, ahead of the Sussexes’ Oprah interviewing airing, the royal family announced that they were investigating claims that Meghan Markle had bullied staff while she was a senior royal. At the time, a spokesperson for the Duchess of Sussex said that Meghan was “saddened” by the “latest attack on her character,” per BBC News. In the end, the results of the investigation were not disclosed.

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Mark McCormick EDI / Mirrorpix/Newscom/The Mega Agency 1 / 22 When a single family is under as much scrutiny as the British royal family is, skeletons are bound to fall unceremoniously out of closets.
From the former Prince Andrew‘s epic fall from grace to various affairs, drug use and other lapses in judgment, here are 21 of the most infamous scandals to plague the royal family over the last century.MORE: Follow Wonderwall on celebrity.land for more top news

Ron Sachs – CNP / MEGA 2 / 22 Anyone who’s seen The Crown knows that Prince Charles and Princess Diana had a deeply unhappy marriage and that the now-King was having an affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles for years while still married to Diana. At the same time, the late Princess of Wales had affairs of her own, including an alleged one with James Gilbey. In 1989, she and Gilbey spoke on the phone for 23 minutes while unknowingly being recorded. On the call, the man called the princess “Squidgy” a whopping 14 times, per News.com.au. In 1992, several tabloids obtained and published the full transcript of the conversation, igniting a scandal which would forevermore be known as “Squidgygate.”
Phil Loftus/Capital Pictures / MEGA 3 / 22 Less one scandal than it is a series of scandals, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of royal privileges between 2019 and 2025 after it publicly surfaced that he had entertained a close friendship with the deceased s** offender Jeffrey Epstein. Most shockingly, Andrew was directly accused of sexual exploitation by one of Epstein’s most vocal accusers Virginia Giuffre. As a result, Andrew was stripped of his Duke of York title and later of his princedom. He was also kicked out of his Windsor residence.
ZUMA Press / MEGA 4 / 22 Close to a century later, the abdication of King Edward VIII remains one of the royal family’s most enduring scandals — particularly given a) it was the first voluntary abdication in British history, ever, and b) it’s the single decision that gave way to Queen Elizabeth II and then King Charles II as our modern-day monarchs. Edward abdicated after just months on the throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson, who was a divorcée and therefore considered an unsuitable match for the King at the time. Edward’s brother, the late Queen’s father, King George VI, acceded to the throne after him.
MEGA TheMegaAgency.com 5 / 22 The royal family has endured many scandals over the last century, but it’s hard to think of one that has generated quite so many headlines as what has been known as “Megxit.” Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had enough of the way they were treated as part of the royal family and vowed to step down as senior royals in 2020, starting their new life as private citizens in the Duchess of Sussex’s native California.
© MATRIXPHOTOS.COM / MEGA 6 / 22 Diana had Squidgygate; Charles had Tampongate — a scandal which began just months after the late Princess of Wales’ private phone conversation with James Gilbey was leaked in 1992. Tampongate refers to a leaked phone conversation between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles while the latter was still married to Princess Diana. In said conversation, Charles jokingly professed his desire to “live inside [Camilla’s] trousers,” possibly as a tampon. celebrity.land / MEGA 7 / 22 After the former Prince Andrew‘s close friendship with s** offender Jeffrey Epstein came under scrutiny circa 2019, the disgraced royal was given the opportunity to explain himself during a lengthy sit-down interview with Emily Maitlis for the BBC Newsnight. During the 50-minute conversation, Andrew made some truly incredible claims, such as that he wasn’t able to produce sweat. The interview has been characterized as Andrew “digging his own grave” — and his life and reputation went downhill from there. Mirrorpix/Newscom/The Mega Agency 8 / 22 Many people found out about Princess Margaret‘s scandalous affair through Season 1 of The Crown, but when it happened, it dominated headlines. The young princess fell in love with royal equerry Peter Townsend, who was divorced and therefore regarded as an unsuitable match. When Margaret told the Queen she wanted to marry Townsend, he was “banished” from the country, and Margaret made a public statement announcing her decision not to marry him, as reported by TIME.
Tom Maddick / SWNS / MEGA 9 / 22 A particularly brutal write-up from People, dated 1989, shows the extent of the rumors surrounding Princess Anne potentially cheating on her first husband (Captain Mark Phillips) with her second husband (Sir Timothy Laurence, then just a royal equerry and — as far as the public knew — Anne’s friend). While no salacious details were publicized about Anne and Laurence’s extramarital relationship, some of their “love letters” were stolen from the palace that same year — and it’s commonly accepted that the two, at the very least, were engaged in an emotional affair. Anne and Phillips separated later that year and divorced in 1992, with the Princess Royal and Laurence making things official that same year, per People. They’ve been seemingly happily married ever since.
TSC/Capital Pictures / MEGA 10 / 22 Some televised conversations make history. In 1995, Princess Diana gave an interview to the BBC’s Martin Bashir, which is still being spoken about three decades later. That’s when the Princess of Wales famously said, “There were three of us in this marriage,” referring to Prince Charles‘ ongoing affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles. For context, Diana and Charles officially separated in 1992, but didn’t divorce until 1996. The interview is now believed to have been arranged in a manipulative way, per People. Steve Finn/Capital Pictures / MEGA 11 / 22 One thing about royal marriages… you can expect them to either feature rumors of extramarital affairs — or else the real thing. Technically, Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson‘s 1992 scandal fell somewhere in the middle, since she and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had already officially separated by the time photographs of her getting her toes sucked by her boyfriend, the American John Bryan, made it into the tabloid press. What most shocked the public about these photos is that 2-year-old Princess Eugenie was present in some of them. ZUMA Press / MEGA 12 / 22 When Princess Margaret divorced her husband Antony Armstrong-Jones, a.k.a. the Earl of Snowdon, she was the first British royal to do so, marking the first divorce of a senior British royal in over 400 years. Margaret’s marriage was famously fraught, with Armstrong-Jones repeatedly cheating on her, and her “retaliating” with a younger man called Roddy Llewellyn. The Snowdons announced their separation in March 1976 and officially divorced in 1978, per Harper’s Bazaar.
©RAMEY PHOTO AGENCY/Newscom/The Mega Agency 13 / 22 Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, has been embroiled in — or at least on the sidelines of — many royal scandals in her time. In 2010, U.K. tabloid News of the World published a video of Fergie accepting a bribe from an undercover reporter in exchange for access to her ex-husband Prince Andrew. She accepted a payment of roughly $40,000 USD with the promise of a further $750,000 approximately, perOprah. Speaking about it with Oprah Winfrey later on, the duchess said, “There aren’t really very many words to describe an act of such gross stupidity.” © GRAHAM READING / MATRIX / MEGA 14 / 22 In 2005, a 20-year-old Prince Harry shocked the world when pictures of him attending a costume party wearing a Nazi officer costume made it into the press. Following the scandal, “I sat down and spoke to the chief rabbi in London, which had a profound impact on me,” the Duke of Sussex said in the 2022 Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan (via People). “I went to Berlin and spoke to a Holocaust survivor.” In his 2023 memoir Spare, Harry also revealed that a young Prince William and Kate Middleton had encouraged him to use the costume idea and had found it hilarious.
MEGA TheMegaAgency.com 15 / 22 In early 2021, a freshly Californian Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sat down with Oprah Winfrey to set the record straight about their royal departure (the conversation aired internationally that March). They made a number of shock revelations in the interview, including: that rumors that Kate Middleton had made Meghan cry were unfounded and that it was actually “the reverse,” that Meghan had experienced suicidality while working as a royal, that certain royals had expressed “concerns” about Prince Archie‘s skin tone, and many more.
©2005 RAMEY PHOTO /X / MEGA 16 / 22 Prince Harry has discussed his difficult youth at length in recent years — indeed, he lost his mother at just 12 years old, a traumatic event for any child. One of his low moments occurred when he was made to spend a single day in a south London rehab facility in 2002 after his dad found out that Harry was smoking weed and drinking alcohol, per The Guardian. He was 17. The Sun / MEGA 17 / 22 Thomas Markle was originally supposed to walk his daughter Meghan down the aisle at her 2018 royal wedding. He forfeited that privilege when he was found having staged paparazzi photos ahead of the big day. Today, the father and daughter duo pretty much do not talk. ©2012 RAMEY PHOTO/MEGA 18 / 22 Though Prince William and Kate Middleton have certainly been at the center of some salacious and mostly unfounded rumors over the years, they’ve actually managed the remarkable feat of being only barely controversial since their 2011 royal wedding… except for one incident. In 2012, Kate and Wills were enjoying a private vacation when, unbeknownst to them, photos of the Duchess of Cambridge sunbathing without a top were snapped. The French magazine Closer published said photos and apparently, it’s the angriest people who know William have ever seen him. The royals sued and won.
Andrew Young / East Anglia News Service / MEGA 19 / 22 Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s reputation has been in free fall for years, but a particularly low point occurred when he became the first modern senior royal to ever be arrested. On his 66th birthday in February 2026, Andrew was taken in for questioning, having been arrested “on suspicion of misconduct in public office,” per BBC News. The public office in question was his post as U.K. trade envoy between 2001 and 2011. Even at the time, he stepped down over — you guessed it — his ongoing relationship with the late s** offender Jeffrey Epstein, per celebrity.land. It would take close to another decade for Andrew to lose his royal titles. JOR/Capital Pictures / MEGA 20 / 22 The late Queen Elizabeth II is often quoted as having dubbed 1992 her annus horribilis, a.k.a. a “horrible year.” For one thing, her year was so terrible because three of her children separated or divorced from their spouses that year: Prince Charles, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew. There was also a fire at her childhood home, and the tabloids were particularly unkind with the royals over those 12 months, per TIME. JOR/Capital Pictures / MEGA 21 / 22 On January 10, 2023, Spare hit bookshelves around the globe, giving us previously unheard-of insights into the way The Firm operates — and into Prince Harry’s own personal life. Some of the most astounding revelations included: Harry’s alleged physical altercation with brother Prince William over Meghan Markle, the fact that William and Kate Middleton had known about his infamous Nazi costume beforehand and encouraged it, several drug use admissions and more, per Town & Country.
MEGA TheMegaAgency.com 22 / 22 In March 2021, ahead of the Sussexes’ Oprah interviewing airing, the royal family announced that they were investigating claims that Meghan Markle had bullied staff while she was a senior royal. At the time, a spokesperson for the Duchess of Sussex said that Meghan was “saddened” by the “latest attack on her character,” per BBC News. In the end, the results of the investigation were not disclosed.