Teddy bears, sex and excess: New book sheds more light on former Prince Andrew’s downfall

Aside from the sex scandals and his links to Jeffrey Epstein, “Andrew bullied underlings”, the new material states.

The then Prince Andrew photographed with Virginia Giuffre when she was a teenager.

“According to one member of staff at Sunninghill, ‘If he passed you in the corridor, you had to stop mid-walk and curtsey, and if he thought it was insufficient he’d stand over you saying ‘lower’ and make you repeat the curtsey until he was satisfied’.”

In a New Zealand exclusive interview, Lownie told the Herald every allegation in the book had been confirmed by multiple sources and tested by his publisher HarperCollins’ lawyers.

The book alleges the former prince kicked his dog in front of guests during a shooting weekend, and that he kept the widows of police officers who had been murdered in Belfast waiting for an hour to meet him – so he could play golf.

Lownie also claims that in the first-class section of a British Airways flight to New York, the former prince was offered a bottle of water he said was too cold, and when the stewardess apologised and said all the water was in the chiller, “he undid his flies, shoved the bottle down his trousers and said, ‘This will warm it up’”.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor being driven away from a police station after his arrest on suspicion of misconduct in a public office. Photo / Getty Images

After several years of research, Lownie describes the now 66-year-old Mountbatten-Windsor as pompous and a bully.

“He used [a regular] chat-up line while dancing: ‘What’s it like to have a royal cock rub up against your leg?’” Lownie wrote.

“I’m slightly sort of embarrassed for him because he’s just a sort of dinosaur with these attitudes and behaviour,” he told the Herald.

“And also, I felt slightly angry that women were being put through this who couldn’t really respond … outrage really that he should think he could behave in the way he did. He should have had more slapped faces.”

British author Andrew Lownie’s book Entitled details the former Prince Andrew and his former wife Sarah Ferguson’s financial scandals, extravagant lifestyles and connections to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Lownie has also turned the microscope on the late Queen, who died in 2022 aged 96.

He alleges she enabled some of her son’s behaviour by letting him disrespect women with few consequences in his early years.

More specifically, he is highly critical of how the Queen privately provided an estimated $15.8 million towards an out-of-court settlement for a civil sexual assault lawsuit taken by Virginia Giuffre.

The American had claimed Mountbatten-Windsor had sexually abused her three times when she was a teen. The former royal vehemently denied those allegations.

The financial settlement to Giuffre – said to total $36m – was paid in March 2022. Thirteen months later she took her life, aged 41.

Lownie told the Herald: “It does worry me that [the Queen] was prepared to protect Andrew knowing all the things he had done.

Author Andrew Lownie says he has so far released only about 10% of the details he has discovered about the former royal.

“To pay hush money to a girl … that must change our view of the Queen.”

The first edition of Entitled was a global bestseller, with sales in Commonwealth nations alone topping the 250,000 mark.

Sales soared by 466% after Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest on his 66th birthday on February 19 on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

But Entitled has also made Lownie some enemies, namely those close to the royal family and others who stand by Mountbatten-Windsor and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.

Author Andrew Lownie claims Queen Elizabeth II enabled some of her controversial son’s behaviours. Photo / Getty Images

He said the “establishment” had tried to paint him as a class traitor.

“There are lots of people who have benefited from this system of patronage and don’t like it being challenged and don’t like them being exposed,” Lownie told the Herald.

Some journalists whose job it is to cover the royals, and who Lownie believes ignored some of Mountbatten-Windsor’s conduct when they should have reported on it, have tried to “dismiss me as just a gossipmonger”.

“I hope this changes the sort of royal writing so that people are a little bit more rigorous rather than just giving the sort of handouts from the palace,” he said.

Lawyers for Lownie and publishers HarperCollins went through extensive legal discussions over content in the book.

“I have been very careful; I don’t want to be sued,” Lownie said.

A selection of British papers after the ex-prince’s arrest in February this year. Photo / Getty Images

He told the Herald that Entitled probably featured only about 10% of what he had dug up so far, and he is now writing a follow-up book, Untitled: Epstein and the Fall of the House of Windsor.

Mountbatten-Windsor’s life pre-scandal included a 22-year stint in the Navy. He served in active duty in the Falklands War, flying a helicopter as well as later commanding a minehunter ship.

Twenty-five years after he left the Navy – and now stripped of his military honours – he is still fascinated by war, according to Lownie.

Writing in Entitled, he says: “A royal source said Andrew spends hour after hour playing video games and watching golf on a super-sized TV. It’s not uncommon for him to stay up all night playing Call of Duty.”

Hanging over the former prince’s head now is whether he will be charged after his arrest. British media have previously reported a decision could be as far away as the start of next year.

Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 34 years of newsroom experience.

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