Thanks to a newly released movie on Netflix depicting the disastrous series of decisions that led to Prince Andrew’s resignation as a senior working royal, the world’s attention is once again on King Charles III’s younger brother. The embattled royal was spotted out on Friday, the same day that the movie Scoop, which dramatizes the 2019 BBC Newsnight interview in which Andrew defended his ties to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, hit the streaming service.
Andrew, the 64-year-old Duke of York and the eighth in line for the British throne, was spotted smiling as he sat astride a horse, taking a ride on the grounds of Windsor Castle. He was accompanied by an unidentified female rider on her own horse, both wearing helmets, gloves, and coats and looking to be in good spirits.
In a 2022 interview with Vanity Fair, a friend of Andrew’s called the public revelation of the royal’s ties with Epstein, as well as his bizarre defense, “a crescendo of horrors; it just got worse and worse and worse.” A 2010 photograph of Andrew and Epstein deep in conversation while walking through New York’s Central Park was damning enough, but the allegations that later emerged about Epstein and his associates, including that an underage girl had been forced to have sex with Andrew, were much worse. Andrew denied ever having a sexual relationship with her.
The Newsnight interview was a bombshell, with Andrew describing Epstein’s offenses, the sex crimes he had been convicted of, as well as his own behavior, in euphemistic terms, saying that he “kick[ed] [him]self” for the events, and that he “let the side down.”
Of Epstein, he said, “Do I regret the fact that he has quite obviously conducted himself in a manner unbecoming? Yes.”
In a statement announcing his resignation from official royal duties, a few months after Epstein’s 2019 death by apparent suicide in prison, the duke expressed his remorse, which he had notably not explicitly done in the interview.
“I continue to unequivocally regret my ill-judged association with Jeffrey Epstein,” he wrote. “His suicide has left many unanswered questions, particularly for his victims, and I deeply sympathize with everyone who has been affected and wants some form of closure. I can only hope that, in time, they will be able to rebuild their lives. Of course, I am willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations, if required.”
In February 2022, Andrew settled the lawsuit brought against him by Virginia Giuffre, the woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her. He paid her around $16 million, according to The Telegraph, without admitting wrongdoing.
Rufus Sewell, who portrays Andrew in Scoop, told Vanity Fair that the Newsnight interview quotes, such as Andrew explaining away behavior by describing himself as “too honorable,” “depending how you view them, are either exasperating or painful to watch. Or sometimes, in a dreadful way, kind of funny.”
Gillian Anderson, who plays journalist Emily Maitlis in the film, avoided watching the interview as long as she could, she said.
“I came to it late, because I knew that it was going to be cringeworthy,” she told VF. “For a while I didn’t want to subject myself to that.”
Though he was stripped of his military titles by the late Queen Elizabeth II, his mother, and forbidden to use his “HRH” title in an official capacity, Andrew has by no means been banished entirely from the royal family’s innermost circles. He attended the high-profile memorial service for Greece’s King Constantine in February, and joined the family for Easter services last weekend.
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