<\/p>\n
Was it strange, finding the woman he had uncovered so much about, suddenly in his house? \u201cYes,\u201d Lownie says. He alleges several eye-watering details about Fergie in the book: that she frequently failed to pay her staff, that she continued to associate with Jeffrey Epstein years after publicly disowning him, that she once spent \u00a325,000 in a single hour at Bloomingdale\u2019s. Even so, Lownie airily admits, he was \u201ccharmed by her. You know, she\u2019s very charismatic. She\u2019s like a Labrador, a bundle of energy. These are the two sides to her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around us is some of the evidence of Lownie\u2019s industry: scruffy boxes filled with Freedom of Information requests, tome after tome about the Royal family, acres of press cuttings. Lownie used, he says, only around 10 per cent of the material he collected. It took him two years just to read it all and to compose a list of names to approach, which eventually numbered some 3,000 people. Of those, just 300 agreed to speak to him \u2013 \u201cbut\u201d, he points out, \u201cthat\u2019s probably about 250 more than most books\u201d.<\/p>\n
Many in the publishing world admire Lownie\u2019s completionism, his Pied Piper ability to coax apparently slight but telling anecdotes from an extraordinary range of sources. One of many marmalade droppers in the new edition of Entitled <\/em>are comments from an armed police officer who used to work at Heathrow, and who recalls Andrew meeting a British Airways crew member on a plane, spinning her around when she tried to shake his hand and bending her forward \u201cso that his groin was clearly and firmly in contact with her backside\u201d. The police officer judged that the then-prince\u2019s action amounted to a \u201cpossible sexual assault\u201d but no action, of course, was taken.<\/p>\n At another point in the updated edition, Lownie returns to his theme of Fergie\u2019s Marie Antoinette<\/a> attitude to food, reporting that her chef was ordered to \u201cmake a sizeable cream cake\u201d every day. If it wasn\u2019t eaten, the cake was thrown away \u2013 and a fresh one baked the following day regardless.<\/p>\n The book itself begins, as with all of Lownie\u2019s books, with a question \u2013 in this case, whether Andrew and Fergie really were, as they used to be described, \u201c\u2018the happiest divorced couple ever\u2019. I thought, of course, that was a myth.\u201d In general, Lownie admits, he is drawn to \u201cwhat I call rogue royals, the bad boys. They\u2019re more fun.\u201d Still, when he started on Andrew, he was warned off it. \u201cEveryone said \u2018You\u2019re crazy, he\u2019s so boring, no one\u2019s interested\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n It turned out, of course, that people are very interested in Andrew \u2013 including various members of America\u2019s Congress. \u201cI was lucky it was part of the news agenda,\u201d he says. When Entitled <\/em>was first published, \u201cthough it got a bit of attention, nothing happened. If there hadn\u2019t been the Epstein releases, it would have just died a death.\u201d<\/p>\n Lownie sets out persuasive evidence that suggests that Epstein may not have died by suicide \u2013 a position long dismissed as an outlandish conspiracy theory. \u201cI think the thing with the Epstein revelations is we all say, \u2018Oh conspiracies don\u2019t happen, it\u2019s all cock-up\u2019. Then you suddenly realise that there is sort of a conspiracy here. This is all carefully planned and it\u2019s sort of supranational.\u201d<\/p>\nWhy Epstein\u2019s death may not have been a suicide<\/h2>\n