Why Prince Andrew’s still a prince living in a mansion

Sam Hawley: He’s decided he won’t call himself a duke anymore, but Prince Andrew is still a prince, living in a 30-bedroom mansion on the grounds of Windsor Castle. So when, if ever, will he be held accountable for his association with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged abuse of Virginia Giuffre, whose harrowing memoir has been released this week? Today, royal commentator Juliet Rieden on whether Andrew could ever lose his prince title. And a warning, this episode contains content that may disturb some listeners. I’m Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily.

Sam Hawley: Juliet, last week, Prince Andrew, he put out a statement relinquishing his royal titles. Just tell me what he said and why he said he did it.

Juliet Rieden: Yes, well, it was an incredible statement, actually, although I think for a long time we’ve been waiting for something like this.

News report: Another fall from grace for Prince Andrew. This time a public announcement renouncing the Duke of York title he held so dear.

News report: In a statement issued through Buckingham Palace, Prince Andrew said that after discussions with the king and his family, that they had concluded that the accusations about him distracted from the work of His Majesty and the royal family.

Juliet Rieden: This, of course, was in advance of the publication of Virginia Giuffre’s memoir. Virginia Giuffre is the victim of Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted paedophile who Prince Andrew had a very unfortunate close friendship with. In that memoir, Virginia Giuffre talks a lot about Prince Andrew.

News report: Miss Giuffre writes that when she was 17, Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, told her that she was just like Cinderella, going to meet a handsome prince.

Juliet Rieden: And in advance of that, this statement came out. It said, in discussion with the king and my immediate wider family, I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I vigorously deny the accusations against me. I mean, my immediate response was, I was blown away by the arrogance of this statement. There’s no word about the victims, no word about the hurts that this man, who was unfortunately Prince Andrew’s close friend, about the hurt that he had done to so many vulnerable young women.

Sam Hawley: And he wasn’t actually stripped of these titles. The Duke of York is one of them, the Earl of Inverness, there’s some others, but rather he decided that he wasn’t going to use these titles anymore.

Juliet Rieden: Yes. I mean, it’s an odd situation that I think we’re all trying to get our heads around, where they choose, he has chosen not to use his titles. The titles still exist. They’re there. They’ve not been taken away. In order for that to happen, to actually be stripped of his titles, it would need an act of parliament. You know, possibly the palace felt that this was an easier way to do things, that it wouldn’t disrupt parliament. But I think the public mood may be turning against that and may want something more permanent in place.

Sam Hawley: Alright. Well, as you said, this decision from Prince Andrew came just days before the release of Virginia Giuffre’s memoir. It’s a book that she wrote before her death in Western Australia earlier this year. It makes for shocking reading, doesn’t it? Just tell me about some of the allegations she makes in that book.

Juliet Rieden: Look, I think, first of all, I have to say it’s an incredibly courageous book. It’s very brave of Virginia, the late Virginia Giuffre, to have explained exactly what went on. You can feel her trauma. It leaps off every page. There are a lot of alleged specifics around what happened with Prince Andrew, and that includes that she was trafficked to Prince Andrew to have sex with him on three occasions. Trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Andrew denies this, but she says that he was well aware of her age, that they had a conversation about it, and he said that she would be not much older than his own daughters and that she was 17 at the time. It is so distressing to read. So distressing.

Sam Hawley: Well, Prince Andrew, as you said, has denied all these allegations, but he did reach a £12 million settlement in a civil case with Virginia Giuffre in 2022. The thing is, though, he can’t deny some other things that he’s landed himself in trouble for, because during this really infamous interview, of course, that he did with the BBC, journalist Emily Maitlis a few years back, the Prince claimed that he had cut off all contact with Jeffrey Epstein in 2010.

Emily Maitlis, journalist: Was that visit, December of 2010, the only time you saw him after he was convicted?

Prince Andrew: Yes. Yeah.

Emily Maitlis, journalist: Did you see him or speak to him again?

Prince Andrew: No. No. That was that… 2010 was it. That was it, because I went…

Sam Hawley: But now there’s been these new emails published that really show that that was not the case, that he was still sending emails to Jeffrey Epstein the following year. In one of the emails, he signs off saying, ”Keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon.” Again, so disturbing.

Juliet Rieden: Oh, really disturbing. Really disturbing. I mean, in another one, he says, ”We are in this together.” You know, Prince Andrew is being proven through these emails to be a liar. He lied in that interview. Obviously, his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is much closer than he has told us. There have been other revelations that have come out about his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, taking money from Jeffrey Epstein over a long period. It is a mess. It is a real mess. And it is very, very damaging, of course, for Prince Andrew, but for the royal family as well. Optics are everything for the royal family. They are seen in a role model position and they have to behave accordingly. Prince Andrew clearly hasn’t, and he hasn’t for an awfully long time. And I think that’s the problem. Nobody is blaming the royal family for what Andrew has done, but the fact that it has taken so long to take action within the family about this is a really bad look.

Sam Hawley: Yeah, and there’s other emails too that suggest that Prince Andrew asked his taxpayer-funded protection officer to actually dig up dirt on Virginia Giuffre.

Juliet Rieden: Yes, I mean, this has just recently come to light and if it’s true, that is very disturbing. My understanding is that the police in Britain are looking into it, the Metropolitan Police, but yes, I mean, this is something that is clearly actionable in Britain. Not only should Prince Andrew not use taxpayer-funded protection officers to do this work, the work itself is despicable, utterly despicable and needs to be exposed.

Sam Hawley: Yeah, well, the journalist Emily Maitlis, who did that interview that we’ve all seen and has been made into a few movies, I think, she reflected on Radio National Breakfast about the inconsistencies in Prince Andrew’s story.

Emily Maitlis, journalist: There are so many cracks and gaps and things that don’t really make sense. The email chain that we’ve now seen suggests that he carried on being Jeffrey Epstein’s friend, not just that he carried on, but that they were close, but also that he’d essentially lied to the British public when he said so categorically that he’d gone to stay with Epstein in December of 2010 specifically to break off that friendship.

Sam Hawley: So, Juliet, let’s then return to this issue of Prince Andrew voluntarily giving up his titles. He was no longer a working royal anyway, so in a sense, it doesn’t actually change anything, does it?

Juliet Rieden: No, I mean, it’s interesting, isn’t it, because from the outside there’s a sort of question, well, so what? What he really needs to do is actually take some responsibility for what’s gone on. But, you know, one of the commentators that I found very interesting on this is the US attorney, Gloria Allred. She said some very pertinent things. She said that Prince Andrew owes it to the victims of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to come forward and share what he knows about what went on in that house of horrors with the police. This isn’t about him. This isn’t about his titles. It’s about those vulnerable young women whose lives have been shattered by the behaviour of Epstein. And, you know, let’s put aside whether or not Andrew was involved in the wrongdoing, and he still vigorously denies that he’s done anything wrong. Surely the right thing to do is to share what he knows about what were crime scenes.

Sam Hawley: Well, as you said, the British Parliament would need to officially strip him of these titles, and MPs in the UK, they have begun efforts to try and do that. Obviously they’ll need the numbers. But even if he was stripped of them officially, he still is a prince, right? Can that ever be taken away from him?

Juliet Rieden: Yeah, I mean, it’s a difficult one. He was born a prince as the son of a monarch. Again, we’re talking about a parliamentary action. The entitlement of being given a prince or princess title goes back to an ancient letters patent. That would have to be changed, and that would have to be changed by Parliament. There was a piece in a British newspaper at the weekend suggesting that Prince William is thinking about an idea where no non-working royal can use their titles. And that sort of makes a bit of sense to me. You know, prince is like being a CEO or whatever. You know, when you’re a working royal, you get the title prince to show that you work for the royal family. You get to use that title. I think that would be a solution. But that’s certainly not what seems to be being discussed at the moment by Parliament.

Sam Hawley: No, and he’s still very much a prince today, living in, by the way, a 30-bedroom mansion, Royal Lodge on the grounds of Windsor Castle. And incredibly, it’s been revealed in The Times of London, the newspaper, that he hasn’t actually even paid rent there for 20 years.

Juliet Rieden: As you say, Royal Lodge, 30-room mansion on the Windsor estate, beautiful, beautiful property. It’s where Prince Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, now live. Now, when he started living there, a deal was struck with the Crown Estate. That deal said that instead of paying annual rent, Andrew would make this large lump sum payments for renovations. Of course, these are renovations that he benefited from. That was about £8 million. And in return for that, he would pay what’s called a peppercorn rent, which is basically the sum of a peppercorn.

Sam Hawley: It’s nothing.

Juliet Rieden: Which is pretty much nothing for the duration of its 75-year lease. It’s certainly a very, very good deal. It’s a bit of a sweetheart deal for Prince Andrew and something that is part of his privilege of being part of the royal family.

Sam Hawley: Alright, well, Juliet, there is a thought the King is trying to deal with this, kind of settle it, before William takes over, and even more damage, of course, is done to the royal family and its brand. So what will we see now, do you think? Will he be banished from all royal events, like the Christmas church gathering, for instance? He always sort of pops up there. Will he be there this year?

Juliet Rieden: Yeah, my understanding is that he won’t be appearing at any royal events, any public royal events, and several private events where there may be photographers or whatever. Andrew will not be invited to Christmas at Sandringham, nor will Sarah Ferguson, his ex-wife. I don’t think we’re going to see him in public with the royal family probably ever again.

Sam Hawley: Well, Juliet, there are reports that Prince William will ban Andrew from his coronation, whenever that might be, but I guess the biggest worry for the royal family right now is that there could be more to come. Do you think there is any appetite among the family to go further at all, to actually make moves to get him off Windsor Castle land and to permanently remove any of these titles that he still holds?

Juliet Rieden: I’m sure there’s appetite for it. I think it’s about how it can be done. In defence of the king, I think his hands are tied a little bit. I mean, what I would like to see is less said about Andrew and more said about the victims. I feel that they need to come forward and help these survivor victims. They’re the people who are suffering in this, not Prince Andrew.

Sam Hawley: Juliet Rieden is the ABC’s royal commentator and author of Royals in Australia. If anything in this episode has raised issues for you or someone you know, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14. This episode was produced by Sydney Pead. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I’m Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.