Just when you thought Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor couldn’t get any more odious – what with his friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, those sexual assault allegations by the late Virginia Giuffre (which he denies), his supposed inability to sweat – something comes along to make an impossible situation even worse.
That something, this week, is the claim that the former prince once “kicked his own dog – in the head”. Oof. If there’s anything that will earn the ire of the entire British nation, it is that.
The claim comes from the royal biographer Andrew Lownie, who says the incident happened at a BBQ at Sandringham, when Andrew was in his twenties. Speaking to Palace Confidential, Lownie said the story came to him from a very close friend of the Royal Family. “He was shocked to see Andrew kick the head of his dog – Andrew’s dog – because I think he grabbed a sausage roll or something. And no one said anything at the time. And this man felt he had to say something.”
Lownie said he was informed the man “reprimanded” Andrew and told him to “get lost”, adding: “That evening, as they were having drinks and dinner, Prince Philip came up to him and said, ‘Thank you, that needed to be said, and I’m glad you said it.’” But Lownie queried why the late Duke of Edinburgh didn’t say it to his son directly. “The question, I think, is why didn’t Prince Philip say it? Was he worried about embarrassing Andrew in front of this person?”
It’s impossible to know whether the incident itself (or the reaction from the Duke of Edinburgh) is true, but when taken alongside a litany of other misbehaviours, it doesn’t look good. As the writer Maya Angelou once put it: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time” – and the ex-duke has been showing us who he is for a long time, now. So, isn’t it time we started believing him?
We already know he’s a disgrace to his family due to his continued association with Epstein – even after the former financier was convicted for child sex trafficking in 2008, he continued to host him at royal residences – and has been stripped of all royal titles and military roles. We know he’s been forced to leave his 30-bedroom mansion in Windsor, Royal Lodge; and that he’s been accused of sharing information with Epstein during his time as UK trade envoy.
And we all saw a series of damning photos in February: first, those released in the Epstein files, showing Andrew bent over the prone body of an unknown young woman; and weeks later, those snatched shots in the back of a taxi on the day the former prince was arrested and detained for 11 hours on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was later released under investigation, but that didn’t stop the campaign group Everyone Hates Elon from hanging the snaps in the Louvre in Paris, alongside the caption: “He’s Sweating Now”, referring to his disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview.
Kicking a dog? With everything else we now know about Andrew, it really wouldn’t surprise me.