The Daily Beast Podcast - How Epstein's Sick Sleaze is Destroying the Royals

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

Tom Sykes, The Daily Beast’s unmissable Royals columnist, joins Executive Editor Hugh Dougherty to examine how the fallout from Jeffrey Epstein has reignited a crisis around Prince Andrew that now threatens to engulf the wider monarchy. As new scrutiny revisits Andrew’s relationship with Virginia Giuffre and raises questions about what the Palace knew, Sykes argues that King Charles III is confronting a scandal no longer containable by tradition or silence—one already straining relations with heir Prince William and forcing a reckoning over accountability, reputation, and whether the royal family can still rely on deference in an era demanding transparency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the extraordinary emails that was uncovered literally shows this extraordinary email chain of Andrew saying to his secretary, Amanda Thirsk, can you get me the reports about, you know, what's going on in this country? She finally gets them, sends them to Andrew. He just sends them onto Epstein. I mean, it is absolutely extraordinary. These sex trafficking allegations feel to me like they're going to be really complicated to prove many years later. but I feel that the sharing of confidential information in violation of the Official Secrets Act is really easy to prove because it's happening there in front of our eyes. Welcome to the Daily Beast podcast. I'm Hugh Docherty. I'm executive editor of The Daily Beast. I'm filling in for Joanna Coles, who is recovering from surgery, but we'll be back soon and I know is enthusiastically reading the comments. Thank you to everybody who's been wishing her a recovery. we have such an exciting episode coming up for you. We are going to be talking.

I am going to be talking to Tom Sykes. Tom Sykes is the royalist. He is the Daily Beast authoritative correspondent of all things in the British royal family. And I just, before we get into it, Tom, I just want to run through some of the things we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about Epstein. We're going to talk about crime, alleged crime, real crime. definite crime, possible crime. We're only going to talk about family feuds.

We're going to talk about scandals in Britain, in America, in the Middle East. We're going to talk about Congress. We're going to talk about the police. I mean, I can't believe the number of things that the British royal family are involved in. Welcome. Thank you for being with us. Thanks, Hugh. And you may have missed the really important news today,

which is that Prince William gave £5,000 to a fellow who's going to walk 40, miles from his home to raise money for some charity. So that should go a long way to addressing all the problems haunting the royal family at the moment, I think, wouldn't you? £5,000, that's about $8,000. That's a lot of money for the royal family. Or is it? Because just to mention one of the many scandals we're going to get into, the king, King Charles, gave 1.5 million pounds, which I guess is like $2.2 million, to Virginia Dufrey, the most tragic and the most awful story of Epstein's victims. And it turns out King Charles has now been implicated in it directly as well. So let's start at the beginning. Let's unpack all this. Let's start with Prince Andrew.

And I'm calling him Prince Andrew just so, you know, just so people know who I'm talking about. But Tom, why don't you take it from there? Yeah, so, I mean, look, it has been the most extraordinary couple of weeks for the royal family. I suppose big picture, the way I am thinking about this, I don't know if you know your physics, you, but there's a term in physics called stable equilibrium versus unstable equilibrium. And a very good example of something in stable equilibrium is like a Newton's cradle, right? You know, the things that bang like that. and you lift up one and they go like that and they revert to their original shape.

A typical example of something in unstable equilibrium is a pile of snooker balls, right? And you tip one and they all collapse and they can't come back to their original shape. And I think we've always assumed that the royal family is in a stable equilibrium and that when these things happen, when Princess Diana dies or Charles gets divorced or even, you know, these huge things like the abdication in 1936, we sort of assume that ultimately it'll come back to the shape that it originally was. But I think the feeling now is that this crisis around Prince Andrew, ex-Prince-Andrew as I suppose we really should call him,

has metastasized to such a level, has become so extreme that it feels like it's going to be very hard for the royal family just to come back to its original shape and pretend that nothing has happened. I mean, this week alone, we've had a former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, calling for a police investigation into Andrew, saying that 90 Geoffrey Epstein flights landed and unloaded

and reloaded sex trafficking victims at a London airport, some of whom appeared to have been destined for Andrew. That's just one of the things that's happened this week, But when former prime ministers are accusing you of a member of the royal family of being involved in sex trafficking, I mean, as you will know, Hugh, usually you mention the royal family to any politician serving or former or whatever. And they very quickly find a reason to run away from you at high speed because they don't want to talk about the royal family. Everybody wants to talk about the royal family now.

and I we are way past the point of never complain, never explain. Like there is clearly going to have to be a massive apology from the royal family at some point because this all happened on Charles's watch, you know, the whole thing going back to 2010 and there's been this, I think, really disgraceful attempt to blame everything on Queen Elizabeth. I don't think Queen Elizabeth was, it clearly, she wasn't blameless. Clearly, Andrew was her favourite child and he was indulged and she had a blind spot and people tried to warn her about what he was up to. But the simple fact of the matter is that for the last several years of her reign, she was dying of bone cancer. She couldn't get out of bed. She couldn't

really see. She was very confused a lot of the time. And they had a co-monarchy and Charles was running it together. And the idea that Charles wasn't across, what was a cross? What was a co-monarchy? What was, was happening with Virginia Dufre when, you know, and this report in the Sun saying that he contributed 1.5 million pounds, about $2 million towards the settlement. Now, the Palace are pushing back on that a bit, saying that's not the case in a briefing to the Times. I noticed the Sun still have the story up, which is really interesting. The Sun clearly not in the mood to issue a correction. They have a very good Royal Correspondent in a guy called Matt Wilkinson, very, very competent, experienced reporter.

But the point is that, in a sense, the whole strategy of Charles's office throughout this seems to have been either, first of all, to say nothing's happening, then to say when something was happening, oh, there's nothing we can do. And then, finally, to say, well, it's all my mother's fault. It's all mummy's fault. And to hide behind the skirts of a dead woman, you know, who, frankly, you know, you know,

It has a lot of respect in the United Kingdom. Not just the United Kingdom, Tom. I mean, this is, Queen Elizabeth was a woman who, successive presidents who agree about nothing else, who hate each other, you know, Donald Trump is known to be a massive royal fan. And there's a whole lot I want to unpack later about that. But he has one of the only people that he has ever said, nothing but positive things about was Queen Elizabeth.

And Barack Obama, somebody who Donald Trump agrees with on nothing, says, has so many positive things to say about the Queen, a huge level of personal affection from him and Michelle Obama. So Queen Elizabeth is like a figure that people understand to be one of, we thought, unimpeachable virtue. But let's just unpack for people. What has Prince Andrew done? because the list is extraordinary.

We all knew that he had been pictured with, at the time, a 17-year-old girl who had been trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, and they were pictured together in London in Galane Maxwell's flat or apartment in a very exclusive address, and he had his arm around her. And that picture, of course, was Virginia. Dufrey and that set off this explosive series of like a slow running car crash. So what has happened in the last week we've come to learn a lot more, right, about

everything that he was doing and everything he was alleged to be doing. Yeah, so everything of course stems really from or the story, the uncovering of this story stems from that photograph taken in Gilles-Mexwell's townhouse, in Belgravia, a very nice streets in Belgravia opposite a lovely pub which you will know here called the Nag's Head. I have indeed been in that pub. Exactly. Very well known.

You know, many, I mean, loads of people I think who are watching this will have visited London. Maybe they're in London. This all happens in places that people, you know, are, everybody has walked past Buckingham Palace and seen the changing of the guard. That pub in Belgravia is one that

people who live in London all know. people who come to London, many of them go, it's one of those like, where to go on London guides. So all of this is happening in plain sight almost, right? Right, exactly, exactly. So Gellon and Andrew and all those characters were always seen by all the people drinking at the Nagshead, which is literally opposite to it, which is, you know, it's a detail, but it's quite an interesting one. But fundamentally, what has happened is that we've had this drip, drip, drip of documents, beginning originally with the stuff that was released by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee that was from the Epstein Estate, then the successive two drops by the Department

of Justice. And they're so huge, there is so much paperwork and so much stuff to search to that literally journalists on every publication in the United Kingdom are just going through them and more and more stuff is emerging every day, limited really only by the bandwidth of the number of journalists able to search through it. So it's gone incredibly quickly from the allegations against Virginia Joufrey, the lies that Andrew told in his BBC Newsnight interview, for example, where he said that he was so honourable that he just went to say goodbye to Andrew in 2020. I mean, this was one of the first things that was knocked down.

But more and more stuff has come out. Now, interestingly, although, of course, the thing that I think, think will revolt most people the most are the allegations of sexual abuse against Andrew. I suspect that in the end it might be a slightly Al Capone situation. And I think if they actually get him in the end, they might get him on this sharing of confidential information. Because obviously, as we all know, proving sexual abuse is really, really hard. There's so many people involved. It was transnational. It was happening all over the world. As I said earlier, there were all these flights coming in and out of Stansted Airport.

We don't exactly know who these people are. And of course, these files, just because someone sends an email saying something, doesn't stand up in a court of law. What probably does stand up in a court of law is if you send an email to someone, sending them confidential information that you have as a consequence of your role as a public official, and And this is what this politician called Peter Mandelson was doing, and he has been fully investigated by the police. We've had the photographs of the police turning up with the plastic boxes dragging out the files and all of that. And this is what Andrew was doing. We can see it there in black and white. He writes to Epstein. He says, I've got an amazing opportunity in Helmland, in Afghanistan.

You know, well, people are literally, soldiers literally dying out there. He's figuring out. He's figuring out. Is this a way to get in and curry favour with Epstein and make a bit of money? And you should say, the British royal family, this is a crazy feature of British life. The British royal family actually have access to the government's most closely held secrets just because they are the royal family. Yes. And one of the extraordinary emails that was uncovered by Newsweek, by a very competent reporter there called Jack Royston, and a well-known, quite well-known British reporter

who's worked in all the tabloids, literally shows this extraordinary email chain of Andrew saying to his secretary, Amanda Thursk, can you get me the reports about, you know, what's going on in this country? And her, hassling literally a senior secretary in the government to be sent the report, she finally gets them, sends them to Andrew.

He just sends them on to Epstein. I mean, it is absolutely extraordinary. Tom, I just want to give you some colour that Devin, our excellent producer, is in the corner. And I can see him. And unfortunately, we don't have the camera set up on him. He is reacting in real time to this with absolute astonishment. Because I know you live this every day. Your substack, the Royalist, is reporting on this every day.

And this, you know, what we're talking about, he's always. literally his joy is dropping. I mean, it is really interesting. The Amanda Thirsk one is particularly interesting. So, yeah, one of my colleagues in these trenches, Jack Royston, as I said, he is the one who surfaced this email about Amanda Thirsk trying to get all these documents off the government. He's also got another really interesting story that he did. yesterday, I think, saying that when Andrew leaked this trade report to Epstein, that was in the

context of him trying to get a payoff for Sarah Ferguson to sort out her debt problems, which was something that Epstein, you know, made a bit of a speciality with paying off Andrew and Sarah Ferguson's debts. So it is, it feels to me that these sex trafficking allegations feel to be like they're going to be really complicated to prove many years later. I think any normal person reading through those files would conclude that Andrew was involved in it. But I feel that the sharing of confidential information in violation of the Official Secrets Act is really easy to prove because it's happening there in front of our eyes. And Tom, has Andrew offered any response to this? Because we've had days and days of this.

And normally you would expect somebody in this position to offer a public response. Andrew said nothing. He no longer even has a press spokesperson. There are various people who used to work for him, who you have to email for comment. They very rarely respond. But it does at least give him a right of reply when you're writing about him. What we have had, however, is statements from the Prince of Wales and the King. And there's another whole story in this, because the Prince of Wales made a statement on Monday morning saying that they were terribly disgusted at the revelations from the Epstein files, that Prince of Wales, meaning William and Kate, obviously, that they were discussed.

Because he was off on a tour of Saudi Arabia, and he didn't want it to sort of overshadow them to be heckled on the tour, which in fact in the end they were. Just as a complete aside, also in the Epstein files is the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. It's de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, basically body-hugging Jeffrey Epstein. So it seems it's very hard to go around the world and not bump into Epstein's friends if you're a member of the royal family. Yeah, and this is even coming back to touch William because William's Earthshot Prize has now been reported to the Charity Commission over one of its founding, So Williams Earth Shop Prize gives million pounds a year to five different incubator businesses that are trying to like save the world through tech. It's like a VEC approach to like saving the world, right? It's kind of brilliant idea.

It's kind of brilliant charity. They've done great stuff. And he always, he's repeatedly come to the US and done the prizes here. I think he lasted them in New York and in Boston before that. I might be the wrong way around. But he's absolutely put, you know, it's been a big thing. He's done segments on television talking about it, and it has begun to engage some of the big tech companies and figures as well.

Right, sure, and it's a brilliant price. But guess what? Giving away $5 million a year is quite expensive. I know it's peanuts by American standards, but in our poultry, United Kingdom... If he d'assed, I'd have helped. It's quite a lot of money. And it turns out that one of the founding members was this guy,

Sultan Ahmed Bia. in Suleyem, who was until Friday, the chief executive of DP World, which is one of those extraordinary kind of logistics businesses that touches sort of every part of our lives without realizing that's an Emirati business. And it turns out that Epstein and him were emailing while he was in jail, including one particularly disturbing email in which Epstein wrote, where are you? Are you okay? I loved the torture video. Well, I mean, you know, so as a charity in the United Kingdom,

you're subject to this thing called the charity commission, and you have to make sure that the people giving money to your charity, that it's coming from legitimate sources, that it's not people trying to, you know, wash their dirty money, basically, through the charity. So charity commission has said, we are aware of concerns about sources of funding to their short prize, assessing the information to determine any next steps. So, you know,

I should just say that that email was itself a scandal in the United States because when the Epstein files came out at the end of January, the reference to torture video was you could read and the fact that it was an email involving Jeffrey Epstein. But Sultan Ahmed bin Salim's name had in fact been redacted. And the two representatives in the House of Representatives who have pushed this so hard, Thomas Massey, the Republican, Rochana, the Democrat, both highlighted what on earth was this name redacted for? And the Department of Justice was basically shamed into revealing it.

And while that name itself, you know, should never have been redacted, but here we have, it's created this whole new episode, I guess, of this scan. Tom, hold that thought and we will take a word from our sponsors. And we are back talking about the Royal's biggest scandal, maybe ever. And of course, so much of this scandal here, isn't it, is about accountability. I mean, certainly over here, like, that's the way that this is the word that you keep hearing now among people saying that, you know, not enough is being done. The King's argument up to now has always been, but I've done all I can, there's nothing more I can do. We saw a shift in that on Monday when the king in this statement that blew, frankly, blew William's long-planned tour of Saudi Arabia out of the water.

The king literally, as William and the entire press corps arrived in Riyadh, Charles made a statement saying that he would cooperate with the police, that he would help the police if requested. I'm told there were frantic scenes at Riyadh airport with some journalists actually choosing to come back to literally turn around at the airport and come home, terrified that Andrew was about to be arrested. So really, really, really bad karma for royals to steal each other's thunder. But to blow your son out of the water

when he's on a massive diplomatic mission, I mean, the idea that that couldn't have waited 24 hours, or 48 hours is just crazy. And that really gets to the heart of this conflict between William and Charles, which is tearing the royal family apart. I mean, the anger that Williams' camp and William's side have towards Charles

about the way that he's dealt with Andrew. And it's very, very striking the similarities to how they feel about how he's dealt with Harry. Andrew himself, No, he hasn't apologised. He won't speak to the media. He's hiding away at Wood Farm and Sandringham and seems completely unwilling to engage in any public form at all with this.

The King has said that he will cooperate with the police. But the way he made that statement, just as his son was arriving on diplomatic tour in Saudi Arabia, which then completely stole all the thunderfall. from that tour, and I'm told, ended up with frantic scenes at Riyadh airport, of journalists wondering whether they needed to pack up and come home in case Andrew was going to be lifted by the cops. So let's just talk about the idea of a member of the royal family being investigated by the police. It just doesn't happen, right?

I mean, there have been times in the past. Princess Anne famously in Britain, not famously here, but famously in Britain, Princess Anne kept getting pulled over for speeding. And she would be taken to court and she would pay a fine. And that was kind of it. And that's, but the royal family, the royal family are above crime, really, aren't they, Tom? Yeah, they are. And that's why it's very interesting, this report that Charles potentially paid off some of Virginia

Dufre's settlement. Now, as I say, this was a report in the Sun saying that he gave one and a half million pounds towards the settlement. The panists are now trying to distance himself from it, the same to the times that it's not accurate, but I note that the sun have not corrected the story and have not taken it down.

It's worth to say that settlement, at the time, Andrew's then spokespeople said that there was no admission of liability and this was basically to, you know, make it go away. Obviously what we've learned from the files is that

there was much more damaging material, And he may well continue to deny that he had sex with Virginia Dufrey, but there was all sorts of other damaging material in the files that we did not know about at the time that colour our understanding of that settlement. But I think the thing is Hugh, isn't it, is that so many of these files are emails. So is it conceivable to say that the palace didn't say, do you know what, pal, before we sign a check for $15 million, we're just going to have a quick run through the servers

and see what messages you were sending to Jeffrey Epso. It just doesn't seem credible to me. And this raises a really, really interesting constitutional issue, right? Which is that if the king, in whose name justice is performed, if the king knew about what you were doing, is it still really a crime that you can be prosecuted for? And we saw this, of course, very famously with Paul Burrell, who was Princess Diana's butler

who kept thousands of items of Princess Diana I mean literally including pieces of her underwear and was prosecuted by the police and managed to get out of it because he said that he told the Queen and then the Queen mysteriously at the very last minute remembered that indeed he had told her

that he was keeping several thousand items of hers for safekeeping and in his attic 200 miles from London Yes. Well, hey, you wanted to look after them. Yeah. And I think that Andrew, I think part of the reason why, if this never gets anywhere near a courtroom, I think that will be part of the reason why, because of the whole constitutional difficulties. But I also think that if it doesn't end up in court at this stage and if it doesn't end up with a proper investigation, I think it's extremely. damaging for the royal family. So they're kind of caught if they do and they're caught if they

don't. Like I was talking to friends of William and Charles last week and William's friends were saying when William becomes king, if this was happening under his watch, there'd be a proper investigation, a proper police investigation and blah, blah, blah, you know, he'd be, you know, down the station answering questions with PC plot. And Charles's side were saying, it's really easy to say that when you're not actually the king. because it's like being an opposition politician going, I'm going to, you know, lower taxes and give you free childcare. But if you're actually king and Andrew comes into court and starts testifying,

you know, who knows what might happen. And then we saw this very other sinister development in the Sunday Times at the weekend where Andrew was starting to be described as unstable by the palace. there's starting to be suggestions that he's suicidal. Some of it, some suspicious minds are suggesting, feels like a softening up exercise for him to be committed to a psychiatric hospital, which frankly would solve a lot of the royal family's problems. And this is a slight, you know, kind of back down into history,

but that would not be the first time that the royal family or their relatives have found themselves committed to psychiatric hospitals. to get them out of sight. It's a very bizarre feature of royal history. Well, interestingly, where Andrew is living now, wood farm on the Sandringham Estate, was, of course, famous through the home of Prince John, who was this, you know, mentally troubled.

Mentally disabled, and obviously, it should say Prince John, we're talking about the early 1900s here. Yeah. We kind of understand, you know, words, were used at the time that we wouldn't use now, we think he was probably in some way mentally disabled. Yeah, I think he had Down syndrome, actually.

So even by the standards today, obviously he would have been completely part of society. But in those days, yeah, it was keep him out, keep him out of sight. And Prince John, and I believe he died very young. I think he died at the age of 12 or 13. But yeah, so they don't have,

But, you know, look, that's a long time ago. Obviously, you know, look, if Andrew does get locked up in a mental asylum, it will be a extraordinary development. But there's definitely a feeling. We've had these kind of reports that he's had his guns taken off him. You know, the hint being that he could kill himself or somebody else, you know, ala King de Pender of Nepal, who famously murdered his entire family. Do I actually went to school with it?

I was about to say they were all at Eton, I believe, Tom. Yes. Yes. That's the elite British school. Yes. The home, or not the home, but the school that's produced prime ministers and members of the royal family, including William and Harry, including the royalist, Tom himself. And murdering the Polly Royals. Yes.

Well, not since I was back in my dorm with Nanny tucking me in. have I been so worried about the state of the British, the state of a member of the royal family and his love of firearms. Yes. But, you know, there's definitely... The reunions must be amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

But there's definitely, there's definitely an attempt to paint Andrew now as mentally unstable. So just... And it's really notable. And the language is really similar to what was used around Diana. Yes. where Diana was painted as unstable, emotional, lashing out, suicidal, all this kind of stuff. So the other big thing that's hanging over this for people in the United States is, is he going to tell the truth to Congress? Because all of this scandal has come out because of the actions of Congress.

Not the actions of Donald Trump. He was forced into signing the law that released the Epstein files. but the votes of members of Congress have forced open these 3 million files. And by the way, 3 million are unpublished. 3 million are being kept secret. So who knows what is hiding in there. But one of the key demands that Rokana, who I mentioned had exploded the files open and got the redactions removed,

which have already toppled this Sultan from the Emirates. But one of the demands that Rokana has been making, is that Andrew must come to Congress and tell the truth. Is that going to happen, Tom? That's not going to happen in a million years. Andrew would never have legal advice telling him to do that. He's never going to come and voluntarily give evidence again. I mean, Andrews, admittedly, it's now harder to find people

who will identify themselves as Andrews's friends. But before this most recent dump, when Rocahanna and Thomas Massey were saying, you know, he had to come to the US. people who knew Andrew said to me that he just felt that this was like them just jumping on the bandwagon. They knew he was never going to come. This was just them trying to grandize themselves, you know,

and they were literally saying, do you know what, maybe they need to focus on people in their own country? Because let's be honest, Andrew has not yet faced any legal ramifications. It looks like those are coming. But he's faced a hell of a lot more than any. in the United States. I mean, I can't even think of anybody in the United States. It's even being fired from their job, barely.

Well, I think the idea, frankly, I think we've had one casualty. Thomas Massey and the US Congress to say how appalling it is that Andrew doesn't give evidence. Look, I'm not saying that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor shouldn't give evidence to US Congress. Of course you should. I'm just saying that it's like never going to happen. And so I think that, frankly, I think that what I want to see is Andrew face it. criminal investigation in the United Kingdom. That, I think, amazingly, actually could happen. And we could end up in a situation, Hugh,

where his magistrate's brother is at leisure in his majesty's prison. And wouldn't that be an extraordinary turn of events to the British royal family? Well, I think it's probably like, I don't know, 500 or 600 years since one member of the royal family locked up another one. But one of the things that's kind of reverberating around this, Tom is that more and more details come out that paint a really a picture of extraordinary, I suppose, moral turpitude is one very high-brow way of putting it. We learned, for example, that Andrew appeared to circumvent security regulations at Buckingham Palace.

And now, a word from our sponsors. And we are back with the royalist Tom Sykes himself. a report in the sun today saying that Andrew would call down to the gate when he had young women coming up using the phrase Mrs Windsor will arrive shortly please let her in

and show her up now this isn't from the Epstein Files but it's obviously triggered by the revelations and very interestingly a character I'm sure you'll remember from your days on the British tabloos who Paul Page the notorious Everybody comes round again

if it Every royal security story ends up. So Paul Page was an enormously corrupt member of SA19, the Royal Protection Squad, who was, I mean, all kinds of, I mean, I think in the end, there were drugs and there were women. And ultimately, I think it was a kind of pyramid scheme that he was running for other cops that finally brought him down. But he is a fascinating source, despite obviously being a compromised witness. He is a fascinating source of insight. he hates the royal family so much for what they did to him.

And he actually has contacted Thames Valley Police just literally today. We're recording this on Friday to say that he's very willing to cooperate and that he also saw all these women being going up to Andrew with absolutely no checks. And to the extent that the joke in the palace was that Andrew should have a revolving door fitted to his bedroom. And of course, Andrew Loney, who is a. friend of this podcast and a regular guest, I should say, Tom, on your royalist channel, revealed just the extraordinary scale of Andrews sexual activities around the world. And one of the things that this comes back to, and I know you quite rightly say that it's

very likely to be an Al Capone scenario of a prosecution, that it's about the money and about the secrets, that clearly Prince Andrew, when he was Prince Andrew, was known to be rich. He was known to be a womanizer. But now we have questions over the origin of that. We have no statement from Andrew about where those are come from. But the

side of the sexual side of this is obviously a big part of this of the picture of what was happening that raises this big question for the king. If the Buckingham Palace

policeman knew that things were bad, how can the person at the top not nor. Yes, and of course that's exactly where I think inevitably this is going to end up because these revelations are not going to stop coming. I imagine that pretty soon people are going to come forward. There's already a lot of suggestion in the UK newspapers that they know who a lot of these women are.

They're just choosing not to name them. I imagine they are being phoned up on a regular basis and being asked if they want to break their anonymity and, you know, potentially be the nail in the coffin. And I think that what we are going to see at some point fairly soon is a statement from the police, you know, that all saying there's very familiar language that a 66-year-old man has attended voluntarily to a station at so-and-so.

Because it just can't go on. It can't go on that the sense of outrage in the United Kingdom is extraordinary. I mean, there's even a story in the telegraph today, you know, traditionally a very loyal newspaper, but traditionally always say the palace line, saying that, you know, that something really has to be done, that just these plaintive declarations that one is terribly upset and one is terribly shocked and disgusted are not enough. Action is required, and that action involves Andrew being investigated by the police. And just to put that in context, Royals don't get investigated by the police.

And public opinion in the UK has rarely been anything other than positive about the royal family. So the royal family is as unpopular now as it's been in my time doing this job. And I would say a long time before that, the latest polls have them at about 45% saying we should keep the monarchy, which is traditionally very bad. I mean, obviously, a lot of politicians would kill for those kinds of ratings. But famously, you know, Queen Elizabeth had had stratospheric ratings. Individual members of the family are still quite popular. You know, William and Catherine, particularly very popular child suffering. Obviously, Catherine's suffering.

But overall, by the time, less than half of the population, think it's a good idea to have a monarchy. You know, you start to, it starts to present questions about, how this institution, which, to be totally honest, can't really very easily be got rid of. I mean, if you thought Brexit was divisive, wait a way to try and get rid of the British royal family. So realistically, they can't actually be got rid of. But what they do need to do is be reformulated and restructured in a very significant way, I think. And I know one of the things that you've reported on repeatedly on the Royalist is that William himself has some views on this that are, you know,

possibly might be pretty radical for some of the royal members for some of his family members. Yes, well, I don't think he's going to go as far as Richard III did, who drowned his brother in a barrel of mamsie wine. But I do think that he is going to make decisive moves, and I've reported a lot about this. And the last time that I spoke to somebody, you know, who was informed about what William's plans were, they said to me, it's very simple. If you're a working royal and you're going around doing the boring jobs, like we saw Catherine today at a school in London with her place to be charity, reading stories to school-aged children and shaking hands and opening gyms, you will get your HRH, your prince or your princess title,

your place to live, your car and your police security. If you're not a working royal, you won't get that. And your title and your HRH will be taken off you. And it's obviously an incredible opportunity now for William to say, look, I'm right. You are wrong and I'm right. And we cannot have Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet wandering around the globe ruining my kid's reign when my kid comes to the throne. So I think there is a huge opportunity for William in this. And I think that power has been bleeding to Williams' camp

ever since Charles announced he had cancer, which if the nerds among us will recall, it wasn't entirely intentional. He meant to announce that he was having treatment for a benign and large prostate. And then they found the cancer while they were doing it and they announced it. And of course, by that it was too late to keep it secret.

Ever since that ill-advised announcement that he had cancer, frankly, if you're a courtier working in the palace, or you have a job in the palace, in the civil service, those kinds of things, and you're wondering about how you're going to pay your kids' school fees and college fees, you're looking to what Prince William wants to do. So the power has all been bleeding over to William.

Everyone's jockeying for position. Everyone knows what's coming in the next five years, you know. So William is in this very, very significant, controlling, commanding situation. And I think now is the time for him to push and say, do you know what? We need a co-monarchy, the same as your mother gave you a co-monarchy in the last 10 years of her reign. You are now in the last 10 years of your reign and you need to start sharing power with me. And I think at that stage, if Charles can do the right thing, really apologize for what's happened with this debacle with Andrew and what Andrew has done on his watch, on his watch, you know, properly apologize for it, become a kind of king emeritus and hand over control.

to William, I think there's a chance they could salvage it. And Tom, what's next? Because we have been watching from this side of the Atlantic, we've been watching this exploding scandal. And as you say, perhaps it's taken some attention away from the exploding scandal here. But there just seems to be an endless explosion of this from the UK. Is it going to be more coming? Well, I think there is, because I think we're only limited at the moment by how many reporters

an editor wants to assign to search through those files, you know, and every reporter is now very familiar with that interface and typing those names in and trying different things and trying different pseudonyms and seeing what comes up. There are three million documents in that dump. So, you know, we could, I imagine that probably only a very small percentage of them have been looked at so far. I think that there is inevitably going to be more stuff.

I think there's going to be hugely damaging stuff. And I think that ultimately this is going to end up with Andrew being arrested and with Charles making one of those six o'clock Friday evening videos with the BBC saying, I'm terribly sorry and I'm devastated and I apologise fulsomely to the entire nation for what happened and I take responsibility for it. Well, Tom, I will like you get back to scouring those. Epstein files. It's as you say, all of us as editors, as reporters are very familiar with that, with that

interface and astonished every time that we open it up and find more secrets. There is only one place to get the best, the most fearless reporting. Tom can blush when I say this, but his reporting, your reporting on the British royal family has been absolutely without parallel and without fear. go to the Royalist. Tom's on Substack. He's on YouTube. And there's just an endless stream of intrigue and scandal. And even some good news, Tom, right? Even people getting £5,000 to walk across England. Well, exactly. And I mean, if, you know, if that doesn't bring a smile to your face, Hugh, what possibly could?

Yep, a chat is set off on a walk across England and you'd get it been posted on Instagram, and delighted he is to get £5,000 from the Prince of Wales. So I think that really whatever objections you might have to the royal family, I think you should shut up and be grateful for what is given to you. We'll see if when he gets the other side of England, if the royal family is the same royal family or if it's minus a few members. Tom, thank you for joining us and look forward to hearing more about this engulfing scandal from you in the future. Thanks very much, you.

Well, what a scandal. and as Tom says, it is only getting bigger and bigger. We are going to keep covering it and all the Epstein scandal relentlessly. Thank you to everyone who's been watching, especially to everyone who's been commenting. I've been in the comments a lot. I'm so delighted that so many of you are wishing Joanna the best for recovery. It is going well. Yes, she will be back.

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