A look at Prince Andrew’s scandals that have tried royal patience

AP:

Britain’s Prince Andrew was forced to relinquish use of his remaining royal titles after the latest revelations about his relationship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein proved one scandal too many for his brother, King Charles III.

Andrew’s antics have tried the patience of the royal family for more than 40 years, triggering embarrassing headlines, lawsuits and suspicions that the prince, now 65, was using his position for personal gain.

Here are some of the episodes that tarnished the reputation of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s second son and finally forced his older brother to banish him from public life.

1984 — Andrew sprays reporters and photographers with paint while touring a construction project in the Watts neighbourhood of Los Angeles. “I enjoyed that,” Andrew said, while wiping his hands on a piece of newspaper.

2007 — The prince sells his house at Sunninghill Park, near Windsor Castle, with news reports suggesting the buyer paid 20 per cent more than the asking price of 15 million pounds. The buyer was reported to be Timur Kulibayev, son-in-law of Nursultan Nazarbayev, then president of Kazakhstan, raising concerns that the deal was an attempt to buy influence in Britain.

2010 — An undercover reporter posing as a wealthy Arab films Andrew’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, apparently offering to sell access to the prince for 500,000 pounds (US$670,000 at the current exchange rate).

2011 — Andrew is forced to resign as Britain’s special trade envoy following the first reports of his links to Epstein. The prince was also facing questions about his friendship with Said Gadhafi, son of the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, as well as his links to a convicted Libyan gun smuggler.

July 2019 — Epstein is arrested for a second time on charges of sex trafficking and later commits suicide in a New York jail cell. The news focuses public attention on allegations that Andrew had sex with at least one underage teenager trafficked by Epstein. Andrew denies the allegations.

November 16, 2019 — Andrew attempts to staunch the flood of criticism by agreeing to an on-camera grilling by BBC reporter Emily Maitlis. The interview backfires when Andrew defends his relationship with Epstein, fails to show empathy for his victims and offers explanations of his behaviour that many people find hard to believe. Andrew says he broke off contact with Epstein in December 2010, a date that will come back to haunt him.

November 20, 2020 — Buckingham Palace announces that Andrew will suspend all royal duties “for the foreseeable future”. Four days later, the prince is stripped of his role as patron of 230 charities.

2022 — Andrew agrees to settle a New York civil lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre, who alleged that she was forced to have sex with Andrew when she was 17. While Andrew didn’t admit to any of Giuffre’s allegations, he acknowledged that she had suffered as a victim of sexual abuse. Legal experts estimate that the undisclosed settlement cost Andrew as much as $10 million.

2024 — Andrew’s ties to a suspected Chinese spy are revealed in court documents. The businessman and suspected spy was barred from the UK because of concerns he posed a threat to national security. Security officials were concerned that the man could have misused his influence over Andrew.

April 25, 2025 — Virginia Giuffre dies of suicide in Australia, where she had lived since about 2002.

October 12, 2025 — British newspapers reveal that Andrew sent an email to Epstein on February 28, 2011, more than two months after the prince had told Maitlis he cut off all contact with his one-time friend. Andrew wrote the email after continued media reporting about the Epstein scandal, telling him they were “in this together” and would “have to rise above it”.