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Widely purported to have been the late Queen’s “favourite” child, Prince Andrew has suffered a sharp fall from grace over the last decade.
Plagued by a string of controversies, the latest blow has seen a “close confidante” being banned from the UK over allegations he was a Chinese spy.
Here, The Independent takes a look at a timeline of Andrew’s fall from grace and his retreat from the public eye.
Queen’s favourite
The Queen stood by Andrew’s side even when he was caught up in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal in 2019 and “stepped back from royal duties for the foreseeable future”.
In October 2021, it was claimed the monarch intended to spend millions of pounds privately funding her son’s defence against allegations of sexual abuse made by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre.
She also signalled her support for her disgraced son by arriving alongside him for Prince Philip’s memorial service in March 2021.
Andrew provided a steady arm for the Queen as she walked into Westminster Abbey to remember the life of her husband, just a few weeks after he reached a multimillion-pound out-of-court settlement with Ms Giuffre.
Friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
During his 2019 interview with BBC Newsnight, Andrew said he had known British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of media magnate and former MP Robert Maxwell, since she was at university.
She introduced Andrew to her then-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein in 1999. The trio enjoyed a close friendship, even after Epstein was convicted of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute in 2008.
Andrew is alleged to have personally invited the couple to Balmoral, the Queen’s Scottish residence, in 1999.
Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June this year following a New York sex-trafficking trial for procuring teen girls for Epstein for him to abuse.
An image shown during the trial appeared to show Maxwell and Epstein lounging on a bench outside a log cabin on the Balmoral estate.
Andrew continued to visit Epstein in New York after the financier’s conviction for child sex offences in 2008.
Epstein received an 18-month sentence but was allowed to go on “work release” to his office most days and was released on probation after 13 months.
Andrew faced criticism when pictures emerged of him opening the door of Epstein’s palatial East Side townhouse in December 2010 and the pair strolling through Central Park.
In his 2019 BBC interview, the royal claimed he had gone to New York to break off their friendship and regretted staying at Epstein’s house while there.
Virginia Giuffre sex abuse case
In 2019, Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, formerly known as Virginia Roberts, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan alleging she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Andrew on three occasions when she was 17 and a minor under US law.
The royal has always strongly denied the allegations.
BBC Newsnight interview
Andrew was criticised for a car crash BBC Newsnight interview that aired on 16 November 2019.
During the interview, he denied he slept with Ms Giuffre, saying an encounter could not have taken place because he was at a branch of Pizza Express in Woking with his daughter Princess Beatrice.
He also said Ms Giuffre’s claim he was sweaty at a nightclub was untrue because an “overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands war” had left him unable to sweat.
The royal faced a public backlash, with equality campaigners claiming he was “too stupid to even pretend concern for Epstein’s victims”.
Step back from public duties
Four days later, Andrew announced the Queen had given him permission to step back from public duties in the wake of the interview.
He said it had become clear to him in recent days that his association with Epstein had become a “major distraction” to the royal family’s work.
The royal said he regretted his association with Epstein and “deeply sympathises” with his victims.
Stripped of royal titles and military affiliations
In January 2022, the Queen stripped Andrew of his military titles and royal patronages in the wake of a US judge allowing Ms Giuffre’s civil sexual abuse case against her son to move to trial.
The prince stopped using his HRH (His Royal Highness) style his roles – including Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, one of the oldest regiments in the British army – were handed to other members of the royal family.
His other military titles included honorary air commodore of RAF Lossiemouth; colonel-in-chief of the Royal Irish Regiment; colonel-in-chief of the Small Arms School Corps; commodore-in-chief of the Fleet Air Arm; royal colonel of the Royal Highland Fusiliers; deputy colonel-in-chief of The Royal Lancers (Queen Elizabeths’ Own); and royal colonel of the Royal Regiment of Scotland.
Out-of-court settlement
In March 2022, Andrew paid Ms Giuffre a multi-million-pound out-of-court settlement, meaning both sides avoided the case going to trial.
As part of the agreement, he was due to pay damages to Ms Giuffre and a donation to a charity “in support of victims’ rights”.
Andrew has faced calls to confirm how he funded settlement – which is reported to be as much as £12m – and whether the Queen or even King Charles, then Prince of Wales, contributed to the sum.
‘Confidante’ banned from UK over Chinese spy allegations
In December 2024, it emerged a “close confidante” of the royal lost an appeal over a decision to bar him from entering the UK on national security grounds.
The man, known only as H6, brought a case to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) after then-home secretary Suella Braverman said he should be excluded from the UK in March 2023.
Judges were told that in a briefing for the home secretary in July 2023, officials claimed ‘H6’ had been in a position to generate relationships between prominent UK figures and senior Chinese officials “that could be leveraged for political interference purposes”.
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