Prince Andrew 'hired a live-in chanting yogi' - and 'asked Charles to foot £32,000 bill'

Daily Mirror

3 days ago

A new royal book has sent shockwaves in royal circles as fresh allegations about Prince Andrew have surfaced.
The biography, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, by Andrew Lownie, examines the disgraced Duke and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson in great detail, exploring their unconventional marriage, lavish lifestyles and eyebrow-raising royal demands.
It's long been reported that King Charles has been feuding with his brother Andrew over his crumbling residence, Royal Lodge. The monarch is said to have been desperate to boot his discraced sibling out of the property for years, but the duke is still clinging on.
And now Andrew's shocking alleged expenses while living at Royal Lodge, despite being axed from royal life, have been revealed by the Lownie. It comes as Prince William's alleged fury at Andrew after a "rude" comment about Kate has also been explored in the book.
The author claims in the book that the late Queen covered many of Andrew's bills- but the gravy train dried up after she died and Charles took the throne. One such expense was a spiritual advisor who is claimed to have stayed with Andrew at Royal Lodge, "for up to a month at a time."
Charles is alleged to have wanted Andrew to move out of Royal Lodge - that was once a home of the Queen Mother - due to concerns the monarch had about the "optics [which] did not look good for a non-working and discredited royal to live in such luxury for a weekly rent of £250".
Andrew signed a lease for Royal Lodge with the Crown Estate back in 2002, and the 75-year-long contract remains his as long as he can afford to pay for the property's extensive running costs and upkeep.
Legally, Charles can't force his younger brother out unless he becomes unable to hold up his end of the bargain, and reports have widely claimed that Andrew has zero intention of moving out of the home he shares with his ex-wife Sarah.
While the Queen might have been happy to cover many of the costs of Andrew's lavish lifestyle, Charles was allegedly not so keen, the book claims, particularly when it came to the £32,000 annual bill for Andrew's yogi healer.
"It was impossible for the King to evict him," the book claims. "The King did, however, refuse to pay an annual £32,000 bill, previously paid by the Queen, for Andrew's Indian healer, a yogi who treated him with chanting, massages, and holistic therapy and who often came to live at Royal Lodge for up to a month at a time.
"Eventually in 2024 the King withdrew any financial support and insisted Andrew fund his own security."
The book also claims that Charles has, over the years, not had entirely positive feelings for his younger brother.
It claims that when Andrew and Edward were small boys, Charles doted upon the youngest two siblings, writing them a children's book called The Old Man of Lochnagar, with a valet called Stephen Barry saying, "Charles liked to play with his younger brothers when they were small and 'they adored him'."
Later in life, it is claimed that at some point the dynamic between Charles and Andrew shifted, with Lownie alleging in one passage about Sarah Ferguson's affair with Steve Wyatt that Charles was "never a fan of his younger brother" and was not "sympathetic" to the public scandal.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment.
'Entitled' by Andrew Lownie (William Collins, £22), to be published August 14.