Sources close to Prince Andrew have told The Daily Beast that rumors he is dating singer Kylie Minogue are a “load of rubbish” after an Australian magazine claimed to have unearthed the relationship.
Aussie mag New Idea’s report that Andrew, 57, and Kylie, 48, have been dating since Kylie’s relationship with her former fiancé Joshua Sasse, 29, ended in February, should, the source’s information suggests, be treated with considerable caution.
“At the moment they’re inseparable—Andrew is 100 percent smitten,” a “palace source” apparently told the magazine, which has a track record of generating unlikely royal stories from dubious sources, and goes on to claim that Andrew reportedly contacted Kylie and offered his condolences after her relationship ended with Joshua earlier this year.
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However, our source debunked the tale in no uncertain terms.
Indeed there are several red flags within the published story that should alert the clued-up reader to the dubious provenance of this story.
Most notably, the magazine claims that Kylie may be on the guest list for Kate Middleton’s sister Pippa’s wedding in early May, and speculates that Kylie could attend as a guest of Andrew.
This is never, ever going to happen. Indeed, there is even a question mark as to whether Meghan Markle, the acknowledged girlfriend of Prince Harry, will attend, as Pippa is said to be enforcing a strict “no ring, no bring” rule, banning friends’ partners who are not at least engaged.
In the run-up to Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding, New Idea frequently sourced stories via a woman they claimed was an “old school chum” of Kate Middleton, Jessica Hay.
Hay gave frequent interviews to New Idea, in which she made a variety of random claims.
Most notably she claimed that Kate had posters of William on her bedroom wall at boarding school—a story categorically denied by Kate on-air in her engagement interview. And Hay was also behind a bizarre story, subsequently withdrawn, that Kate had feces smeared on her bedsheets at boarding school as part of a bullying campaign.
Hay’s story lacked credibility, to say the least, as Kate was not a boarder at the school in question.
Royal sources previously said of Hay: “She is not and never has been a friend. Many claims are just fantasies.”
Today’s Andrew-Kylie story also recalls a story a published in America by OK! Magazine, concerning an imaginary relationship between Prince Harry and Pippa Middleton that turned out to be nothing more than a variety of fan fiction.
When the story was picked up by the Daily Star in the U.K., Harry complained, and Britain’s press regulator made a ruling which declared that the story was “completely untrue.”
The story said that Pippa once turned up on Harry’s doorstep in tight jeans and a sheer top, prompting Harry to light candles and serve up “a pasta carbonara that he’d prepared himself.”
A spokesperson for Prince Andrew told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that, as is customary when it comes to stories concerning the private lives of individual members of the royal family, no comment would be forthcoming.
