The truth behind Prince Andrew's rift with William... and why the scandal-hit duke is so similar to Harry: Royal biographer Andrew Lownie reveals all to Palace Confidential

Daily Mail​

a day ago

The reasons for Prince William and Prince Harry 's bitter rift with Prince Andrew have been revealed on the Daily Mail's unmissable Palace Confidential show.
The warring brothers are not talking to each other but are allegedly united in their disdain and distrust of the Duke of York, with both having X-rated nicknames for him.
Esteemed royal biographer Andrew Lownie claims that Prince William will never forgive his uncle for being rude about the Princess of Wales and the damage he has caused to the reputation of the Royal Family.
And despite the 'similarities' between 'spares' Prince Andrew and Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex doesn't like him.
'Neither of them are very bright. Both of them are pretty entitled. Both of them are weak men, with strong, ambitious wives. There are interesting parallels there. But I think Harry still doesn't have much time for him', Mr Lownie said.
He has given an extraordinary first broadcast interview about his book: 'Entitled, the Rise and Fall of the House of York' to Palace Confidential. The Mail has exclusively serialised his explosive new biography of the Duke of York.
Mr Lownie has claimed that the Prince of Wales is far more cold towards Andrew than his father the King.
'He [William] sees him as a liability to the monarchy and Andrew has not always been very polite about Catherine. William is very protective of his wife', the author and journalist said.
'I think he would be appalled if he knew the full story, which I suspect he doesn't, of what Andrew's been up to'.
He added: 'When William comes to power, Andrew will be toast'.
According to Mr Lownie's book, William refers to Andy as a 't****r'.
Speaking to Palace Confidential host Jo Elvin, Mr Lownie discussed the 'parallels' in the lives of Andrew and Harry.
'There are certain similarities. This idea of about the "Spare", going through life being demoted further down the pecking order', he said.
According to Mr Lownie's book, Harry allegedly confided in William that he 'hated' Andrew, and had choice nicknames for him including an 'a***-h***' and a 'twit'.
Andrew shared a mistress with Bill Clinton, slept with up to 3,000 women and had multiple affairs in his first year of marriage to Sarah Ferguson, the royal biographer claimed.
Mr Lownie believes Jeffrey Epstein was blackmailing the 'over sexed' Duke of York, who will find no way back to royal duties.
'When William comes to power, Andrew will be toast. He sees him as a liability to the monarchy and Andrew has not always been very polite about Catherine. William is very protective of his wife', the author and journalist said.
Mr Lownie believes Andrew has had between 1,000 and 3,000 lovers and viewed himself as a sex God because women 'threw themselves' at him.
But this led to the Duke of York being blackmailed by Jeffrey Epstein and also made him an 'easy target' for hostile foreign states, Mr Lownie claims.
'Jeffrey Epstein provided women and then used it to blackmail people and Andrew, I'm afraid, fell into that honey trap, not just with Epstein but many other people as well', he said.
'He's so stupid he doesn't realise how stupid he is', Mr Lownie declared in the bombshell interview available now on the Daily Mail Royals YouTube channel.
The celebrated biographer, who has also written with authority on the former Edward VIII, Lord Mountbatten and Soviet double agent Guy Burgess, told Palace Confidential:
Andrew requested the infamous 'Newsnight' interview believing it would be 'softer' than an investigation being carried out by Panorama, which was 'suppressed' by the BBC;
The Duke of York was 'very matey' with Donald Trump, sharing a love of women and golf;
Andrew was targeted by spies from Russia and other nations who 'provided girls for him';
One Russian woman seduced Andrew and gave him a bugged Apple laptop;
The Argentinian Junta planned to assassinate him on the island of Mustique and the IRA also plotted to kill him on a golf course;
Andrew cheated his way through Royal Navy staff college;
He was kicked off HMS Broadsword after a fight with an officer who was irate when the prince failed to carry out his duties on board;
Mr Lownie believes there was an affair between Prince Philip and Sarah Ferguson's mother, Susan Barrantes;
Based on four years of painstaking research and hundreds of interviews, the new biography of Prince Andrew book lays bare his lofty ambitions, thirst for wealth and hedonistic life.
The Duke of York had a controversial friendship with billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who once declared: 'We are both serial sex addicts. He's the only person I have met who is more obsessed with p***y than me'.
Mr Lownie said Andrew 'was apparently a sex addict long before he came into Epstein's orbit.
'He was called Randy Andy, even at school. He's clearly highly sexed. Various numbers have been quoted at me ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 women that he slept with.
'He was good looking, he was a prince and women threw themselves at him. He was a notch on their bedpost and he took advantage of that'.
Mr Lownie believes he was unfaithful to Sarah Ferguson on a number of occasions, but so was she.
'There are allegations that both of them had affairs pretty early in the marriage', he said.
Mr Lownie claimed that 'girls would be provided for' Andrew and used as kompromat - a Russian word for when compromising material is gathered to blackmail.
'But not just the Russians, the Libyans, countries in the Middle East, people in Kazakhstan, you name it. They've all got kompromat on Andrew', he said.
Most notably there was a tall, stunning blonde, who had dyed her hair red, part of a Russian spy ring operating in Britain.
She had seduced him in the penthouse of a Knightsbridge hotel, loaned him £25,000 interest-free to pay for one of his daughter's trip to Switzerland.
'She gave him a Mac computer which was bugged', his biographer has said.
Mr Lownie has said Andrew was a target for assassination.
He said: 'The Argentinian Junta had planned at the time of the Falkands to assassinate him. After the war he went to Mustique with Koo Stark. It was never implemented but it was certainly planned'.
He added: 'There have been several assassination threats against Andrew including one by the IRA to get him on a golf course. And this is why his laxity about security, his reluctance to sign his girlfriends into the security gate at Buckingham Palace, is so important'.
Andrew shared a lover with Jeffrey Epstein in Ghislaine Maxwell and also a mistress with Bill Clinton, with the prince and the president crossing paths through their friendship with Epstein.
He has not named the woman he believes was having an affair with Andrew and Mr Clinton.
He said: 'I know who the woman is. I can't say. But they, and Clinton of course, swam in the same same circles'.
He went on: 'It was through Epstein that Prince Andrew met Donald Trump.
'The two things that they [Trump and Andrew] had in common was women and golf. They were very matey, though Trump has denied it since and tried to distance himself. There's plenty of evidence of them meeting together and being photographed'.
Speaking to Palace Confidential host Jo Elvin, Mr Lownie lifted the lid on how being 'spoiled' by the Queen fed his breathtaking sense of entitlement over the past 65 years and left him with 'no very strict moral boundaries in his life'.
The 'very lazy' Duke of York got a high-flying Oxford graduate to sit his naval college exams and even sent him a thank you note when he passed, Mr Lownie claims.
Mr Lownie said that Andrew was later kicked off HMS Broadsword, which the prince served on in the Falklands conflict.
'Andrew ordered a stoking party to go and do some work in between watches in the middle of the night. He didn't go out and supervise it himself as he should have done.
The chief stoker was so enraged by this that he actually went to Andrew's cabin and attacked him with with a heavy metal instrument.
He added: 'The whole thing was covered up'.
In 2022 the Queen stripped him of his HRH, military affiliations and royal patronages as the fallout of the Epstein scandal and a civil case brought against him by Virginia Giuffre, which he later settled for an estimated $16 million (£12million).
Mr Lownie claims that Andrew feels no remorse.
'He generally feels he's innocent of anything he did with Virginia Giuffre and others. I think he just feels that that he's been unfairly treated and he's entitled to do some of the things he's doing', he said.
The Epstein scandal came to a head for Andrew when he agreed to do a disastrous interview with Newsnight.
But Andrew apparently said yes because Panorama were investigating him and he hoped Emily Maitlis would give him an easy ride.
Mr Lownie said: 'The real story on the Newsnight interview is that actually it was Panorama who had done the work.
'They had done investigation. They'd interviewed a lot of people and they were giving the Palace a right of reply.
'At the same time Newsnight were also trying to get an interview and I think the Palace decided that it was better to have a what they thought might be a soft interview from Newsnight than to have this interview with Panorama.
'The BBC at times tried to suppress this Panorama investigation, possibly with pressure from the Palace'.
In his book Mr Lownie reveals the depth of the Duke of York's breathtaking sense of entitlement including his dream to prevent Charles becoming King after his marriage to Diana failed and he planned to wed Camilla Parker-Bowles.
Andrew is even alleged to have lobbied his own mother to allow Prince William to take the throne with him as his Regent in the event that she died.
But Andrew's relationship with William is 'not good', Mr Lownie told Palace Confidential.