Who Ex-Prince Andrew Scandal Damaged Most—And Who Was Unscathed

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s inclusion in the Epstein files caused online discussions on Prince William and King Charles III to turn negative—while some royals were completely unaffected, according to data collected for Newsweek by social listening platform Hootsuite.

Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, was accused of sexually assaulting Virginia Giuffre when she was a 17-year-old Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking victim. He has always denied the allegations and settled a lawsuit brought by her out of court in 2022 while denying liability.

In October, though, the House Oversight Committee began publishing emails from Epstein’s estate showing the extent of his friendship with Mountbatten-Windsor and new revelations in the Epstein files, released by the Department of Justice at the end of January, brought further public outrage.

It is not though, just Mountbatten-Windsor who was reputationally damaged by the scandal and, in fact, one of the royals most in favor of taking a tougher stance against him bore the brunt of the change in online sentiment.

Why It Matters

Mountbatten-Windsor’s links to Epstein created a reputational crisis for the monarchy serious enough that King Charles took the unprecedented step of stripping him of his “Prince” and “Duke of York” titles, rendering his brother a “commoner” despite him remaining eighth in line to the throne.

Some have sought to frame Prince William in particular as being on the ride side of history because he is known to have been pushing internally at the palace for a tougher stance on Mountbatten-Windsor but the Hootsuite data shows conversations about the Prince of Wales nevertheless turned negative.

Prince William

Hootsuite’s data showed online negativity toward William peaked in line with major revelations about Mountbatten-Windsor, in the almost six months from October 1 to March 13.

The total number of posts on social media, news sites, videos, blog and forums, podcasts and other online media was measured at 1.8 million, an increase of 77 percent on the previous six-month period. Engagement with those posts also went up by 51.8 percent to 53.5 million.

Hootsuite measures net sentiment, the balance between the percentage of posts that are positive and the percentage negative, and records that William was predominantly discussed positively until early October when pressure began to build over Epstein.

Initially, he dropped to net zero but by mid-October he entered negative territory, meaning more posts were negative than positive. This appears to have happened around the time Buckingham Palace released a statement from Mountbatten-Windsor in which he said he would voluntarily give up the use of his titles.

The discussion continued to get more negative, reaching a peak of almost minus 50 percent at the end of October when Buckingham Palace issued a new statement formally stripping Mountbatten-Windsor of his titles and forcing him out of his mansion, Royal Lodge, in Windsor.

That appeared to give William a boost and he returned to a positive net sentiment in early November, persisting through December.

However, by early January he was back in negative territory again, by a few percentage points at first but worsening as the publication of the Epstein files approached at the end of the month.

By the time the DoJ released over 3 million documents related to Epstein, William sank back to a negative balance of minus 50. While this did improve a little he was still deep in negative territory, on around minus 25 by the time the data ends in mid-March.

In other words, the peaks and troughs of how William was discussed during the six-month period do mirror the major landmark moments in Mountbatten-Windsor’s Epstein scandal and William did not recover when the news agenda moved on as the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran at the end of February.

Overall, 21 percent of the posts about him were positive during the period in question compared with 35.4 percent that were negative.

King Charles III

King Charles was also affected but less severely than his eldest son. Total posts were measured at 1.4 million while engagements were at 31.4 million, both down on the previous period.

Discussions about the king remained positive for most of the timeline but dipped into negative territory at the end of October in the days leading up to the decision to strip Mountbatten-Windsor of his titles. Even then, he dipped just a few percentage points below zero and quickly had his head back above water in the days after the bombshell palace statement.

Charles’ net sentiment dipped again after the Epstein files release, dropping to a lowest point of a little less than 50 percent on February 16 before bouncing back into positive numbers days later.

Overall, sentiment was more positive, at 21.6 percent, than negative, at 19.4 percent, according to Hootsuite’s data.

That means the scandal had a bigger impact on discussions about William than the king, despite the fact the widely reported perception is that it was William who pushed for a tougher stance on Mountbatten-Windsor.

This may well frustrate fans and even aides to the Prince of Wales and could simply be a product of the fact he attracts more column inches than his father.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

Unsurprisingly, Mountbatten-Windsor was discussed most negatively of all with 47.1 percent of posts assessed as hostile compared with 3.5 percent recorded as positive.

At its height, around 90 percent of the discussion was negative about him with a total of 3.3 million posts recorded and 52.8 million engagements.

Princess Kate

The Princess of Wales is the only royal assessed who was talked about more positively than negatively consistently throughout the timeline. If the Mountbatten-Windsor scandal had any impact on public attitudes to her it appears to have been minimal and short-lived.

Hootsuite recorded a total of 487,900 posts with engagement at 21.9 million and 23.8 percent were positive while 21.9 percent were negative.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Harry and Meghan also appeared largely unaffected by Mountbatten-Windsor and the Epstein scandal but needless to say were talked about predominantly negatively throughout.

The Duchess of Sussex did not have a single period in which positive comments outweighed negative ones, while overall 19.9 percent of the discussion was positive compared with 43.5 percent negative. There were 1.7 million posts about Meghan sparking 41.4 million total engagements.

Meanwhile, discussion of Harry was briefly more positive than negative for about a week in December and a few days in February but otherwise was more negative than positive.

There were 1.3 million posts about the Duke of Sussex giving rise to 29.2 million engagements with a balance of 24.5 percent positive compared to 35.9 percent negative.