{"id":509631,"date":"2025-10-18T14:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T14:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/509631\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T14:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T14:38:10","slug":"uks-disgraced-prince-andrew-gives-up-royal-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/509631\/","title":{"rendered":"UK’s disgraced Prince Andrew gives up royal title"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK’s Prince Andrew <\/a>on Friday renounced his title of Duke of York under pressure from his brother King Charles, amid further revelations about his ties to US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n

“I will… no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me,” Andrew, 65, said in a bombshell announcement.<\/p>\n

He said his decision came after discussions with the head of state, King Charles III<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first,” Andrew said in a statement sent out by Buckingham Palace.<\/p>\n

He again denied all allegations of wrongdoing, but said “We have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family.”<\/p>\n

Andrew, who stepped back from public life in 2019 amid the Epstein scandal, will remain a prince, as he is the second son of the late queen Elizabeth II<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But he will no longer hold the title of Duke of York that she had conferred on him.<\/p>\n

UK media reported that he would also give up membership of the prestigious Order of the Garter, the most senior knighthood in the British honours system, which dates to 1348.<\/p>\n

Andrew’s ex-wife Sarah Ferguson <\/a>will also no longer use the title of Duchess of York, though his daughters Beatrice and Eugenie remain princesses.<\/p>\n

Andrew has become a source of deep embarrassment for his brother Charles, following a devastating 2019 television interview in which he defended his friendship with Epstein.<\/p>\n

Epstein took his own life in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking underage girls for sex.<\/p>\n

‘Birthright’<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the interview, Andrew vowed he had cut ties in 2010 with Epstein, who was disgraced after an American woman, Virginia Giuffre<\/a>, accused him of using her as a sex slave.<\/p>\n

But in an reported exchange that emerged in UK media this week, Andrew told the convicted sex offender in 2011 that they were “in this together” when a photo of the prince with his arm around Giuffre was published.<\/p>\n

But he added the two would “play together soon”.<\/p>\n

Giuffre, a US and Australian citizen, took her own life at her farm in Western Australia on April 25.<\/p>\n

“The monarchy simply had to put a stop to it,” royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told the BBC. “He has dishonoured his titles, he’s in disgrace.”<\/p>\n

Andrew was stripped of his military titles in 2022 and shuffled off into retirement after Giuffre accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was 17.<\/p>\n

New allegations emerged this week in Giuffre’s posthumous memoir in which she wrote that Andrew had behaved as if having sex with her was his “birthright”.<\/p>\n

In “Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice”, to be published next week, Giuffre wrote she had sex with Andrew on three separate occasions, including when she was under 18.<\/p>\n

Andrew has repeatedly denied Giuffre’s accusations and avoided a trial in a civil lawsuit by paying a multimillion-dollar settlement.<\/p>\n

In extracts published by The Guardian newspaper this week, Giuffre described meeting the prince in London in March 2001 when she was 17.<\/p>\n

Andrew was allegedly challenged to guess her age, which he did correctly, adding by way of explanation: “My daughters are just a little younger than you.”<\/p>\n

‘Long time coming’<\/strong><\/p>\n

The once-popular royal was hailed a hero when he flew as a Royal Navy helicopter pilot during the 1982 Falklands War.<\/p>\n

Internationally, he was best known for his 1986 wedding to Ferguson, boosting support for the centuries-old institution five years after his elder brother Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Andrew has also become embroiled in a China spying scandal, and The Daily Telegraph revealed Thursday that he had met three times in 2018 and 2019 with a top Chinese official reportedly at the centre of the case.<\/p>\n

The Epstein case also caught up with Ferguson, 65, last month, when an email from 2011 emerged in which she called Epstein a “supreme friend” and sought forgiveness for “letting him down”.<\/p>\n

She had vowed in the past to “never have anything to do with” Epstein again and called a \u00a315,000 ($20,000) loan the billionaire had made to her “a gigantic error of judgement”.<\/p>\n

York City councillor Darryl Smalley said the city had lobbied hard for Andrew to drop the title.<\/p>\n

“It’s obviously a long time coming, but finally they recognised what a massive liability he is,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK’s Prince Andrew on Friday renounced his title of Duke of York under pressure from his brother…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,2204,2205,9729,5105,7710,519,448],"class_list":{"0":"post-509631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","10":"tag-prince-andrew","11":"tag-prince-charles","12":"tag-royal","13":"tag-royal-families","14":"tag-royal-family","15":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115395684248235392","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}