If you love The Daily Beast’s royal coverage, then we hope you’ll enjoy The Royalist, a members-only series for Beast Inside. Become a member to get it in your inbox on Sunday.
Prince Andrew still faces Epstein questions
Jeffrey Epstein’s death could create a whole new raft of problems for Prince Andrew, who reportedly heard the news of Epstein’s death while holidaying at his mother’s Balmoral estate in Scotland.
ADVERTISEMENT
In court papers unsealed hours before the billionaire’s death, Andrew was accused of having sex with a 17-year old Epstein sex slave and groping the breast of another 21-year old victim of Epstein’s during a party.
Reports suggest that the investigation into Epstein will now focus with fresh intensity on Ghislaine Maxwell, who as The Daily Beast revealed, was a close pal of Andrew’s and a regular guest at his apartment in Buckingham Palace. Ghislaine sought to provide young women for Andrew to have sex with in London, our sources told us.
A legal source tells The Daily Mail: “Ghislaine is the key to all this now that Epstein will no longer face justice himself. The victims deserve answers and she was the person closest to Epstein.
“Far from being the end to Prince Andrew’s problems, Epstein’s suicide could put him under renewed scrutiny because of his close friendship with Ghislaine.”
Andrew, Ghislaine and Epstein were described to The Daily Beast by a guest at one of Epstein’s parties at his palatial Manhattan townhouse as “a trio, a little coterie, a party within the party, the insiders among the other guests.”
The recent cache of documentation unsealed must have made grim reading for palace aides; another victim, Johanna Sjoberg, testified that Andrew groped her breasts and then used a puppet to touch Virginia Roberts Giuffre's breast. The latter alleges that she was forced to have sex with Andrew, among other men, when she was a teen, and has produced a photograph of a grinning Prince Andrew with his arm around her bare waist to support her claim.
Prince Andrew’s ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, may also face renewed questions about accepting £15,000 from Epstein in 2010, when he was already a convicted pedophile on the sex offenders’ register.
She later apologized for what she termed “a gigantic error of judgment,” saying that she had been blinkered by financial desperation.
She has, however, never said if or when the money was paid back.
Prince Andrew’s team have always said he denies any impropriety with underage females, yet have never been able to explain just why he was photographed walking with Epstein in Central Park in 2010 after Epstein was released from prison.
Only two people knew what they were talking about that long ago day, and one of them is now dead.
The chances of us ever finding out the truth of this episode in the life of the Queen’s favorite son are getting closer to zero, but the questions facing him will not go away.
Brothers at war
A week after Meghan’s big British Vogue kerfuffle, the question remains; what was all that about? Meghan’s fans say it was all about promoting her agenda of inclusiveness and diversity, but, churlish though it may be to say it, whatever causes Meghan hoped to promote in the issue were swept aside by the larger controversy.
The Royalist’s suspicion, for what it is worth, is that Meghan and Harry were using the issue to cement their claims to the various bits of territory that will be up for grabs now the joint Royal Foundation of the Fab Four (provide your own hollow laugh here) has officially broken up.
Most critically, Harry has taken full possession of the very fashionable causes of wildlife, conservation and the environment, while Meghan seems to be angling to be the face of mental health awareness, which, officially, both sets of royals will continue to lobby for. This could get messy.
Fab Four ‘showdown’
The Daily Mail reports that the split between the four young royals began after a ‘showdown’ in the days that followed the royal wedding.
The Mail says things “kicked off” after Harry called round to William and Kate to ‘read them the riot act’, for not having offered more support in the run-up to the royal wedding—with a silent Meghan in tow.
A mortified Kate allegedly dropped flowers on the couple the following day and invited Meghan to Wimbledon, but the damage, it seems, was done.
Posh off
Meghan gets stick in The Daily Mail for allegedly refusing to abide by the rules of British dinner party seating, but The Daily Beast doubts the tale.
The Mail’s credibility is harmed by two clangers: first they say the French word placement is pronounced with three syllables (when it is always pronounced with two); but, more egregiously The Mail says that Meghan has been criticized for sitting next to her husband when “couples should never be put together.”
In fact, the custom The Royalist was brought up with is that fiancés should be seated together, as may be newlyweds for the first year of their marriage, and that they may indeed (good-naturedly) appeal the seating arrangements if they are not.
True, Harry and Meghan have now been married for a year and two months, but one can’t imagine they have been at endless dinner parties in the past eight weeks, and sneaking to the press seems infinitely worse manners on the part of other guests than anything Meghan may have done.
Sail away
A gap-toothed Prince George was the star of many newspaper front pages this week as the six year old took a starring role in support of his parents who were racing yachts at a charity regatta on Thursday.
Dressed in a sailor hat, the young prince watched proceedings from a speedboat with his sister, Princess Charlotte—who lost few opportunities to stick out her tongue—and his Middleton grandparents.
His parents were both crewing a boat, renewing the competitive parents trope. William came third and Kate came seventh. To see Prince George beaming out from the front pages of the national newspapers emblazoned with joyful and positive headlines was a salutary reminder of just how straightforward the royal press game can be when the transaction goes smoothly.
Speaking of the sketching-out of areas of influence in the charity world, William was competing in the regatta on behalf of charity Child Bereavement UK; Kate represented the Royal Foundation, in connection with her work on the early years development of children.
TV adventurer Bear Grylls, who won the race, was skippering his yacht in support of a wildlife conservation organization which William has previously supported, the Tusk Trust—evidence, perhaps, that William has indeed surrendered wildlife to Harry.
This week in royal fashion
Kate, in sportswear, wearing a baseball cap with her hair in a ponytail, went sailing this week, and got plaudits from everyone for her lewk—liberation from all those polite and sensible dresses! As Cosmo rightly, and admiringly, put it, “Is it even legal?” to look this good when sailing?
This week in royal history
Princess Anne, the Queen’s only daughter, was born on Aug. 15, 1950 at Clarence House, and turns 69 this year. Anne has a reputation for gruffness, hard work, and also seems welcomingly down-to-earth, as reflected in the lack of airs and graces in her children, Zara and Peter Phillips. She is twice married (first to Mark Phillips from 1973 to 1992; then Tim Laurence, from 1992).
The famous catchphrase attached to her was “Naff off” (or “orf”), allegedly said to some photographers in 1982. Not renowned for her love of fashion, Absolutely Fabulous’ Patsy once noted of Anne: “The only label she knows is drip-dry.”
Unanswered questions
Why did The Sunday Times claim it had a monster royal exclusive in breathless pre-publication tweets, when its front page would subsequently reveal that the big story was that the Queen had said that some politicians were being useless over Brexit?
The Sunday Times claims today the Queen had actually said that politicians seemed to have ‘an inability to govern’; in fact, closer reading reveals the supposed quotes were uttered by an aide paraphrasing comments she made in...2016, and apparently still feels, because Brexit has ground on since then.
The Sunday Times journalist Rosamund Irwin claimed in her tweet that there was ‘no silly season’ at The Sunday Times but The Royalist would beg to differ; this seems the very acme of a silly season scoop.
