The Daily Beast Podcast - Sex Secrets of Trump, Epstein and Andrew Laid Bare

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

Bestselling royal biographer Andrew Lownie joins Joanna Coles for a blistering deep-dive into Prince Andrew’s life, scandals, and the shadowy alliances that brought him down. From explosive allegations of financial corruption at the heart of the monarchy, to his entanglements with Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Donald Trump, Lownie exposes a portrait of greed, privilege, and impunity. With insider accounts, never-before-revealed details, and jaw-dropping stories—from secret business deals to sordid weekends in Thailand—this episode unpacks how the Queen’s favorite son became the royal family’s greatest liability. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Andrew, in your reporting of this book, which took four years, what most surprised you about Prince Andrew? Well, I think just the brazenness with which he leveraged his role position to make money for himself personally, shoehorning people into official meetings who were working for him, the fact the Queen sort of allowed this, in fact, colluded with it. And I think just the sort of extravagance of Sarah Ferguson's speech. and his own sexual addiction, just to sheer numbers of people and his behaviour. I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. And today we're going to be digging into the relationship between Prince Andrew, Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Before we do, I just wanted

to address several comments that you left on our YouTube channel, just referring to my careless use of the term child prostitution. Of course, children can't be prostitutes. What I was trying to refer to was Jeffrey Epstein's plea deal in 2008, where he agreed to plead to one count of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18. That's what I was actually trying to get at. Anyway, thank you for those who left me messages. So I'm very excited to be talking today to the author Andrew Loney, who is rocking Britain and the House of Windsor, the Royal Family, with his extraordinary new book entitled The Rise and Fall of the House of York, which is all about Prince Andrew and all about Sarah Ferguson, better known as Fergie, his ex-wife. So no more time to waste.

Let's get into it. Andrew Loney, very good to see you. I want to say that we were friends years ago before I left for America and you have gone on to an incredible career as an author ever since. Your latest book entitled on Prince Andrew has caused a storm, I think it's fair to say, in the UK. Prince Harry, as I guess we call him now, vehemently denied, but I want to discuss the denial with you, one accusation in the book that he hit Prince Andrew on the nose after Prince Andrew insulted Megan Markle. But let's start at the beginning. What made you decide to write about Prince Andrew?

Well, it's the third of a trilogy of books on royal marriages. So the first was on the Mabattons, Louis Nidwina Mabatton, open marriage, but a very happy marriage. Then I looked at the great love story of the 20th century, or was it, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. And then I wanted to look at the happiest divorce couple in the world to see if that was true. The other advantage was there had been actually nothing on either Andrew or Sarah Ferguson really at all. And, of course, he'd been in the news with the Epstein disclosure. And I thought they were both very interesting characters, both to look at them through the prism of their marriage, but also to look at their activities, which I'd already suspected of leveraging their position as royals to make private money. And that in fact, the story of the book is really a story of financial corruption at the heart of the royal family as much as a story about sexual peccadillos.

So let's just remind everybody, Prince Andrew was Queen Elizabeth's second son. So he's third in the line of children that she had. There was Prince Charles, who's obviously now King Charles, Princess Anne. And then there's a 10-year age gap. And then there's Prince Andrew, correct. And then following in his wake is Prince Edward. That's right. Born in 1960, part of the second family,

always very much the Queen's favourite son, and very different from his three siblings, much more sort of boisterous, much more Germanic in many ways. And, you know, it's extraordinary to see the difference between the siblings. I mean, people were saying to me that actually in childhood, he demonstrated all the same traits of naivety, stupidity, arrogance, pomposity. He's been searching for an identity all his life, and the only identity he has, really, is as a member of the royal family.

And so this was an accident waiting to happen. and the accident, of course, was meeting Geoffrey Epstein and getting involved with him. But actually, it's a bigger story. It's about, I suppose, the way the royal family has protected someone from, I would say, criminal activity. And it says quite a lot about British society and our very deferential approach to the royal family. So, of course, Prince Andrews, since his fateful interview with the BBC, has basically been ushered out of public life, correct? I mean, he really doesn't have a public role as a prince now. He went on to make a $12 million arrangement with a Virginia Jewfrey money that his mother had to pay on his behalf.

And he's really disappeared from public view. How damaging do you think his influence has been on the royal family? And will this book add to that? Yeah, I think he's been hugely damaging. I mean, you look at all the polls. I mean, he always comes very low. and if you look at the comments in any of the articles about him, you know, they're very, very vicious about him and indeed about his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson. I mean, she is, I think, the darling of New York at times,

and she's sort of worked her way back in. But I think he's never quite recovered from the famous Newsnight interview in November 2019, when he made all sorts of wild claims, which were easily disproved. I'm hoping the dial shifts as a result of this book. I mean, other journalists have come forward and seem prepared to relate stories that they knew, which back up what I'm saying, which they hadn't talked about before. An interesting piece of the telegraph yesterday briefed, I think, by the palace saying that they need to get their act together and they should be looking at even removing titles from Andrew, removing him from being Council of State, no longer being a member of the Knight of the Garter. A letter's patent would actually remove his designation as a prince.

And so this is quite serious stuff. And I think the feeling is they need to cut off the limb before he infects the whole of the institution. I hope in some ways this is only a side issue that it's going to lead to greater accountability and transparency from the Royal Family, particularly on their finances. The book is filled with accounts of the palace lying to the media about events, trying to put pressure on them to shut down stories, leaking stories, negative stories about particular journalists, or indeed I discovered leaking stories against each other as members of the Roars. and there needs to be just, you know, just behave properly and then you will earn our respect and then we might be prepared to pay for you. So reading through the book, every now and then I would gasp at some of the bigger allegations

and I want to get into his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and his relationship with Donald Trump. But before we do, why don't you outline for us the biggest sort of corruption at the heart of this? Well, I think the thing that most shocked me was that to have Brayson, Andrew was. I mean, he was as a special trade representative between 2001 and 2011. He was meant to be promoting British trade. He was a civil servant. He was paid by the taxpayer. And yet he was going off and doing business for himself. He was bringing his own mates like Jeffrey Epstein and a particular business advisor called David Rowlands and actually getting ambassadors to shoehorn meetings into his schedule to meet these people to do private business. And various court cases,

other legal depositions, so revealed how he was taking commission on deals, for example, Greek water companies, which had nothing to do with his role as a trade ambassador. And he knew he was protected. When things were reported back to either the palace or to number 10 Downing Street, there was a sort of embarrassed silence and people said, we just don't go there. And so he knew he could be impunity. And the shocking thing was to discover that this was supported by other members of the royal family. The queen not only turned a blind eye, she had. actually colluded with this, entertaining some of these people like the president of Azerbaijan, accepting gifts from them, and basically shutting down any stories that might reflect badly on her

son. And that, I think, is extraordinary. Have you spoken to them since the book has come out? How have they approached you? And what have you heard from Prince Andrew? I mean, the levels of his greed and his wife's ex-wife's avarice and this are. are really sort of breathtaking. And so, too, is what you sense the lack of agency that his aids have around him to stop him from doing this. You sense that any time they lean, they're all talking among themselves saying this isn't acceptable, and yet they're unable to stop him. Yes, I mean, I think because the buck stopped with the queen.

You know, I know that Christopher Gait, who was the queen's private secretary and was the man eventually, responsible for making sure that Andrew stepped down in 2011, mainly because of the Epstein revelations, not so much because of his work as trade envoy. I mean, he just gave up. He said, there's no point. He told one of my sources reporting any of this stuff. So, you know, King Charles knew about it. King Charles tried to prevent him getting the job and tried to keep him in the Navy even longer because he knew it would be a bad recipe to have him swooning around the world of being able to do private business. But the thing continued, even when he was kicked out in 2011,

he was still mounting, doing trips on behalf the government to places like China. And then he set up something called Pitch at the Palace, which was meant to be a sort of Dragon's Den operation to bring investors and entrepreneurs together, all done as a charity, done under the auspices of the royal palaces, with the Queen present and the Grenadier Guards introducing the event. And yet at the same time, he, He set up something called Pitch at Palace Global, where he was insisting on a 2% cut of any investment that came in.

And this is what was making him quite a lot of money. And this is what he was doing with Tenbo, the Chinese spy. The pitch at the palace was then developed in China with Tenbo being his frontman. MPs were calling for the National Crime Agency to look into Andrew 20 years ago and nothing was done. And it's time actually they did do something. So is there an argument that four members of the royal family, they are property rich and that they all get houses, but actually they don't really have an income to survive and they're expected to swan around and talk to diplomats and have a very sort of high lifestyle,

but actually they don't really have a way of funding it. And the Queen was notoriously stingy too. Yeah, well, I don't buy the argument. They pass funds and they pass money down. Andrew probably inherited money from the Queen Mother. I mean, it's all past generations before. And he was able to afford a huge 14 million pound chalet in Switzerland. His wife has just bought two, four million pounds houses in Belgravia,

giving her a rental of 250,000 pounds a year. So I don't think they're short of cash. And there's a difference between members of the royal family who are not working roles, like, for example, apprentice Margaret's son, Lord Snowden, who has a genuine business. He's a chairman of Christie's. He's a woodmaker, woodwork maker, furniture maker, and runs a business. And that's perfectly fine.

No one has criticized him. It's when they use their royal status to make money as brand ambassadors. And Fergert Furgi was very blatant about this. I mean, the collections are called the Duchess Collection. She calls herself the Duchess of York, so she's not been married to him for 30 years. She talks about things in Royal Purple. you know, it's just sort of shameless.

Well, and in a way, it's the foreshadowing of what happened to Megan Markle too, isn't it, that they saw this as a business opportunity, which in fact you're not allowed, you're simply not allowed to take advantage of. Absolutely. In some ways, Sarah Ferguson was the role model for Megan Markle. The difference is that Sarah Ferguson has a bit of charm, and Megan Markle clearly doesn't have that and doesn't clearly isn't quite as savvy. So it's certainly true that Prince Andrew and Sarah, Ferguson were both social magnets in New York. And obviously, the person that used them the most

to validate his social status and his financial status was Jeffrey Epstein. What can you tell us about when they met and what the nature of their relationship was? And there are some fascinating revelations in the book, not least Jeffrey Epstein saying that Prince Andrew was even more sex-obsessed than he was. I think there's a quote of him saying I'm a pervert, but Prince Andrew is much worse than I am. He's the King of Kink, was the term. Andrew claims that he met Epstein in 1999. His own private secretary wrote to the Times

pointing out that it actually met him in the early 1990s. Steve Hoffenberg, who of course was very close to Epstein, says it was in 1991. And I think what it discovered was not only... Can we just contextualise who Steve Hoffenberg was? Because he ran the Ponzi scheme that Jeffrey Epstein worked with was a partner alongside. Steve Hoffenberg ends up going to jail. Jeffrey Epstein manages to get out of it and takes a lot of the money, which you say in the book, he spent on himself.

What I found was the relationship began earlier than they claim. It lasted much longer and it was much deeper. I think the other thing that I found surprising was that there were more of numbers for Sarah Ferguson in the black books than there were for actually Andrew. So as we know, Jeffrey. Epstein and Donald Trump were close friends for many years. Can you talk about the relationship between Prince Andrew, Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein? Yes, well, I mean, certainly Donald Trump and Andrew were close. They again moved in very much the same circles. They had the same interests in golf, money and sex. One of the diplomats, the New York consulate said that

Andrew was always hanging around the consulate, basically looking to do things, trying to bring Epstein in on any of his business trips. And, I mean, they were shocked in the embassy when they were called overheard talking about one of Trump's favorite words, pussy. And Trump was swapping a list of masseurs with Andrew that he could use when he came to New York. So, I mean, it was a pretty buddy-buddy relationship. Andrew and Trump, of course, though Trump has denied a knowing anything about Andrew. I mean, there's plenty of photographic evidence with them together in New York, in Marlago and elsewhere, and indeed in London. So, I mean, again, you know, they're all distancing themselves, but they were all part of the same little group and their pictures of Andrew with

Trump and Epstein. And so I don't think anyone can deny these people were extremely close, but in a particular period at the beginning of the century. Andrew, just hold on one second while we take these messages. I'm Joanna Coles of the Daily Beast. And I'm Michael Wolfe. And where are we going, Michael? Inside Trump's head. How often are we going? Twice a week. Wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, and of course you can watch us on YouTube in the Daily Beast feed. Subscribe now. Michael, are we ever going to come out from Trump's head? I think we may not. I think the entire country may never come out of Donald Trump's head. So Andrew also had an on-off again relationship with Gillesne Maxwell, didn't he?

Who was also having an on-off again relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who she would often refer to as her boyfriend. But talk a little bit about Gillesne Maxwell's role in facilitating some of this and supplying Andrew with, let's say, never-ending entertainment. Well, I think Gilein is the person who drew Andrew Clee into the net. She could see the advantages for Epstein of having someone in his position and prestige. You know, it would really help Epstein. She could see the vulnerabilities of Andrew and how his greed and his sex addiction. So he was easy picking. And they'd sort of known each other for a while. And she was an enabler for Epstein and indeed for Andrew. And there was this weird three-way relationship. Epstein got a sort of kick from his girlfriend also being involved with Andrew.

Andrew and Galane were involved in business ventures together, particularly in Thailand and Malawi. So they were all very, very closely entwined. Sarah Ferguson was worried about the relationship. She tried to distance Galane. She tried to get people like Lynn Forrester and Evelyn to Rothschild to actually lend him there flat in New York so that Andrew could stay there rather than with Epstein and get him away from the clutches of Epstein, though she herself, I would say, was very much within the clutches of Epstein on financial toes. So, yeah, it's a very odd story. And Galane, I think, you know, played Andrew in a big way.

And he kind of fell for it because, and they had this on-off relationship. The people at the security posts at Buckingham Palace said that, you know, she was a frequent visitor, overnight visitor to Buckingham Palace. He refused to sign her in. They knew her well. Friends of Galane have talked about the relationship, particularly at the beginning if it was around 2000. But it was sort of an on-off thing. And that's one of the signs with Andrew. He never has any long sustained relationships with women, but he has an awful lot of sort of woman in ports that he sort of comes to and goes from and uses women in a big way.

This isn't a man who loves women. It's a man who sees how woman can be useful to him. Well, one of the most fascinating moments in the book is when he goes to Thailand and you describe him having an orgy. And it should be said, there are all sorts of people in the book commenting on the number of women that Andrew goes through. And on this particular weekend, he appears to go through about 40 women, literally in the period of a weekend. And you've got hotel staff describing the women as one came out another one would go in fresh meat as it were. Absolutely. And then then he swapped them with an hour of prints, you know, his favoured girls would be passed on. But this information comes,

you know, with people on the record, a righteous correspondent, a diplomat who was there, and in fact, a member of the dire aristocracy. And one of the extraordinary things the Thai told me was that her driver got very friendly with Andrew's driver. And it wasn't only girls that were being brought to him, but also young men. The Thailand story is extraordinary. because here he was on official trips very openly having these prostitutes brought to him. And in fact, he had a mistress in Thailand that he actually had in his car, that he would take around when he went off on particular official trips. And she would then go and sit somewhere and wait for her boyfriend to come and pick her up.

I mean, it's extraordinary, you know, how open he was about his behavior. One of the private secretaries had one of the center, he had all series of requirements when he went on these trips. He wanted a crested teapot and wheatbecks. He had a man bringing his sort of what they thought was an ironing board to iron his clothes. But he also, one of the diplomats was told, well, he likes blondes. Can you lay on some blondes for him? And the diplomats said, I'm a diplomat.

I'm not a pimp. But, you know, they were just really open. He went to the hotels to stay rather than the residents so that he could bring these women in without. any form of scrutiny? Yeah, it's an astonishing story. He's also very obsessed about his title, isn't he? Funny enough, I have a British friend staying with me at the moment who's run across him on occasion and says that he's emphatic about referring to the queen as the queen. And she was at a table where someone joked and said, oh goodness, Andrew, your mother would be very amused by this. I think the anecdote was. And he said, do you mean the queen? And then someone else had referred

to his grandmother. And he went, do you mean the queen mother? And he's sort of obsessed and grandios about using official titles. Absolutely. And I had several stories. I mean, he's very rude to an man called David Anderson, who was a long-term employee at Hillsborough for calling the Queen Mother, the Queen, I think the Queen Mother, and he wants the proper title. And there are plenty of stories of him at weekend parties insisting when he comes down to breakfast that everyone stands up and says, good morning, sir. I mean, he has nothing to rely on in terms of of his own personality, so he relies on his status. You're so withering, I should say, you're so withering.

And he also seems to be on a very short fuse. I mean, we all saw the video of Prince Charles furious with the pen when it started leaking. And the royal family, particularly the men, and this is also said of Prince Harry, actually, that they have very short tempers, and it's sort of naught to 60 in 0.5 of a second. and then they calm down and immediately start trying to appease for the short temper. And that seems to be a pattern in the book about Andrews. Yes, I mean, there are lots of stories of him losing his temper. And he kind of based himself on Prince Philip, who was quite accusatory in his approach to people.

Rather than draw them out, he would sort of challenge them. And he has this very brusque and rather bluffed sort of naval manner, and he barks orders. And there's not a great deal of emotional intelligence there dealing with people. I mean, I wonder if there's some sort of Tourette syndrome, because he does such bizarre things. So, yeah, I mean, you know, the status is all he has. I mean, you know, people talk about, you know, one moment he's making rude jokes and the next,

he's asking you to call him the Duke of York. A girlfriend said that when he danced on tables, he still wanted to be called the Duke of York. So people never quite know, you know, where to draw the line. And a lot of people in the Navy's talked about this, you know, he's put on his princess hat. So instead of being just a regular guy and he'd switch. from it almost immediately. You know, they'd be joking about something as naval colleagues. And then he would insist on his role being recognized.

So it's a sign of a very insecure man. It's not a sign of a strong man. And let's take a quick pause for some messages from our sponsors. We love our sponsors, but we're back to our conversation with Andrew Loney. So in Jeffrey Epstein, both Prince Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, found a financial godfather who used him as social bait and they used him as a cash machine. Then we have the accusations from Virginia Joufrey that she had been sex trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and by Gillen Maxwell to Prince Andrew in London when she's there.

She has the story of going to Trump, meeting him, dancing. then they go back to Gillen Maxwell's apartment in Belgravia, where Virginia Drew Frey has sex with Prince Andrew. And at that stage, she's at the age of 17, I believe. We then have eventually, Jeffrey Epstein dies in, as you have said, suspicious circumstances. Gillen Maxwell gets sentenced 20 years for sex trafficking. And her trial is extraordinary because it seems that she's every bit as guilty. as Jeffrey Epstein of running a network of underage girls who are abused by both Gillen and Jeffrey Epstein. And then Prince Andrew goes on to do the interview on BBC's News Night with

Emily Maitliss, where he thinks he's going on to salvage his reputation, and in fact he just digs himself into a grave, in plain sight on television. Can you talk to us a little bit about the run up to that interview, how he emerged out of it initially thinking he'd done a great job, and then his surprise at the fallout. Well, he was only persuaded to do the interview by Amanda Thursk. Everyone else warned him not to do the interview, or if he did do the interview, there should be prescribed limits to it. It should be short.

He should clearly be well briefed. There is a little bit in the book about, I mean, the news that interview in Emily Maitliss has become famous, and she did a very good job. Did Prince Andrew think he'd done a good job? Yes, I mean, he did. I mean, one of the equerries came up at the end and said, well done, sir. He was very happy to walk, you know, with Emily Maclis afterwards. And I think because he has all these sick fans around him, he thinks he's done a great job.

And this is one of those problems. He has very little sense of self-awareness and very few people around him who he will listen to, who will speak truth to him. I mean, this was a problem in the Navy. Anyone who basically tried to lick him into shape and tell him, you know, what the reality was about his naval career, found their naval career was curtailed, and the people who sucked up to him found their careers flourished. So this is, you know, the big problem.

A protection officer, one of the protection officers told me that I said, well, why didn't anyone report any of this behavior? And he said, well, we were given a choice. We could stay in this job, well paid with first-class traffic, or we were given the option of going back on the beaten Brixton, which would you prefer? And so, you know, he was just protected all the way through. There was no one who was, frankly, looking out for him. And it doesn't seem to be even his own family.

Right. And I was going to say, I mean, just talk a little bit more about his relationship with the queen. He was always rumoured to be the favourite son. Yes, he was the favourite son. He made her laugh. He'd always indulged him. and that relationship clearly, I think she felt protective of him. He was perhaps, in some ways, the most vulnerable. He was the one who wasn't sort of happily settled when the others were.

And, of course, there have been lots of rumours about Lord Portchester being his father. I mean, people have shown facial resemblances between him, particularly the current Lord Portchester, who's the same age as Andrew. And people whose opinion I respect uphold that view. I'm not sure about it. I didn't mention it in the book, but I certainly have had stories I've been researching Prince Philip now from people, one of the lovers of Prince Philip, who said that certainly the Queen was very close to Portchester. They used to visit Kentucky a lot. And it's very likely she thinks that they had some sort of affair. But I think it's very hard for us to believe that the Queen who had the strong sense of public duty would be so foolish as to do that. But who knows what goes. on in a marriage. It does seem incredibly risky thing to do. It does. So just talk us, so can you talk to us about the fallout of the Newsnight interview? And really Andrew's beginning to really fall from grace, the settlement that he came up with and what he's doing now. Sure. Well, you know, the Newsnight really was a pivot point. I mean, I think it involved Virginia Jifrey to bring her case.

I think it just exposed him for what he was. I mean, just such blatant lies. It looked ridiculous. I know that Phillips summoned him to Sandringham and said, basically the show is over now, and they realized they had to do something, that this was reputational damage. But he's still a knight of the garter.

I think he's still a vice admiral. He's still a counsellor of state. So, you know, he didn't lose everything. And the Queen certainly showed her support for him. She, you know, would go out riding with him, sticking him in the car going to Belmaral, going to church, but Belmaral. But the whole thing has unravelled. He hasn't helped himself by refusing to cooperate with any of the American authorities investigating this.

He tried to Dutch the summons by going up to Balmoral. And, you know, I don't quite know what the advice, what the reasoning was behind this, because, of course, it looked awful. And, of course, he never seemed to show any sort of regret for the behaviour or any sort of concern about the victims, which didn't play very well. So the whole thing began, you know, clearly changed. And, you know, clearly when the judge decided there was a case there and it would go to court, he was in a difficult position.

I mean, they pretended that because the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, something had to be done. But I think all the people I talk to said that he was between a hard and a rock place and the least worst option was to settle rather than to go to court. No one I've talked to believes that he is innocent. And of course, that situation has got worse, as fresh disclosures have been made in the various depositions, not least the links with Tenbo, the Chinese spy. I should say that Tenbo is not the only spy associated with him.

So he was very naive, and why people didn't warn him, why MI6 didn't sort of steer him away? I just don't know, because they were certainly investigating. these people. Well, perhaps they didn't, he didn't listen, because one of the consistent themes throughout the book is how he knows more than everybody else. He is Prince Andrew. He is your royal highness, and everybody else is lesser than. If you were King Charles, and you read this book, what would you think? Gosh, what are we going to do? And I would summon my various people, perhaps even the members of the family, and they're all up at at Balmoral now. I mean, it all seems to happen in August and Balmoral. For old Fergie was there

with the toe-sucking at the same time. Yeah, of course, it's when Diana died in... And when Diana died, exactly. No, it's extraordinary. So I think I would say, look, we've got to get a grip on this, and we need to get ahead of the narrative, and we need to address some of the allegations that have been made. I don't, I think we need to actually distance ourselves from Andrew. I think we need clearly people are calling for blood, and we need to offer them something. And I think in a wider picture, we need to, for example, say we're going to be more open about our financial affairs. We are going to perhaps set up this royal register. We are going to agree to perhaps a parliamentary inquiry into his time as special representative, kind of pass the buck to someone else and say, you know, not our problem, mate, you know, but we are not standing up for him.

He doesn't have actually, it seems to me, representatives. He's certainly not commenting on any piece. Buckingham Palace are not commenting on any of these pieces. And so he kind of been left to dangle of it. And, you know, I think maybe they're watching to see how things play, what the public reaction is. But from judging from the comments at the bottom of articles, people feel very strongly about what's been happening. And certainly people have been volunteering me further stories to add to the paper about. of other things that both he and Sarah Ferguson have been up to?

It's fascinating. There's an anecdote about his 40th birthday, and you make the point that neither the Queen nor Prince Philip nor Prince Charles, as well as then, Princess Anne or Prince Edward, so the senior royals, as you refer to them, attend his 40th birthday largely because they believe that Sarah Ferguson, from whom he's been divorced at this point for a couple of years, is actually selling stories or giving stories about them to the. the press and you just think, what must it be like to be living in a family like that? Yeah, no, it's like a medieval court.

It is, well, it is like a medieval court. Yeah, no, I think it must be very difficult. Who do you trust? And you even see why they have these lifelong friends who they feel that they can trust. And it's ironic that the people who are most likely to betray their trust are actually people within the family as opposed to, you know, staff and others. So, yeah, it must be awful. And I think they're caught because in some ways,

need to keep Andrew and Sarah on side because, you know, who knows? One of the themes of the book is how they're constantly threatening to spill the beans. So they've got to keep them on side, but they don't want to keep them too close. So, and of course, Sarah is very adept at playing with the media. I think what's very interesting is to see that Andrew has passed on his ambitions to his daughters. And the PR push at the moment is the daughter should be made to working royals. They can't cope in the slimmed-down monarchy, and they would fill the... bill, they're doing wonderful work with their charities, etc. But I'm afraid the daughters are

pretty deeply implemented in the whole sad story of the family. And I think that they would be unwise to put them too much in the public eye. So King Charles, as we know, is living with cancer. At some point, Prince William will ascend to the throne. What would your advice be to Prince William as he thinks about the future of the House of Windsor and how. it maintains its relevance and frankly its survival. Yeah, well, I mean, I think he has, he's thought about this a lot. I mean, I think, you know, he wants clearly a slim-down monarchy. He wants us back to the old tradition of looking up to them, you know, behaving very well.

It's clearly focused around the family. We have, you know, they're very good adept at promoting the family image and the fact that there is a line of succession there. And I would distance, you know, all those people on the periphery. keep Anne and Edward doing their good works, perhaps bring in the old person to fill in. But I think the Deputy Lieutenant should be doing more of the work the Royals are doing, who was an interesting report the other day showing that actually Royals don't add much to the fundraising for charities. And certainly the research that I saw on both Andrew and Sarah Ferguson was that they actually had a negative effect.

People were actually keen to distance themselves. English National Ballet couldn't wait to get rid of Andrew as his patron. And I think they have to be more open, as I keep saying, about their finances and be open to freedom information requests and parliamentary scrutiny, all these things that they shy away from. And I think they need to have a more honest relationship with the press and not playoff favorites in the Royal Rota. They need to sort of just be open and straight with everyone and then they will earn respect. and then I think they can survive. But I do think, I agree with you. I think the future is a real problem.

And I say that as a monochist, and I want them to survive. And you might say, I'm not doing my bit to help them. But I think we need this stuff to come out because it needs to be addressed. Well, it's hard to think of a more establishment author than yourself in many ways, Andrew, which is why the book is so interesting. So I just want to clarify one thing. You've heard nothing from Prince Andrew or Buckingham Palace since the publication of your book. No, and nor have my publishers, at least when I spoke to this afternoon.

So I know talking to one of the girlfriends that she has been trying to get him to fight back, but he refuses. He kind of just takes the punches. I mean, I'm sure I will be getting a letter from Sarah Ferguson. But of course, the book hasn't gone out yet. So we're all talking about it and the press have seen it, but you can't buy a copy yet. So I suspect once they've gone through it and once they monitor my social media and interviews, I'm sure there'll be a long letter coming. Andrew, just hold on one second while we take these messages.

And we're back talking about Andrew Loney's new book on Prince Andrew. So just for people watching the podcast or listening to the podcast, when does the book actually appear? It appears on Thursday. So as they're the four chiefs. On Thursday, right. And is that dual publication in the UK and the US? Yes, well, in the English language, at the same time, absolutely. Australia, Canada, the lot.

And finally, just tell people how difficult it was. What were some of the obstacles you came across in trying to write a book? It's always difficult writing a book about the Royals. But I think you came across more obstacles than most. Well, it's always difficult to get people to talk about the Royals, particularly on the record. So that was one challenge, getting. people to, I mean, even ambassadors feel that their Her Majesty's ambassador, they have to be loyal to her. I mean, I did seek cooperation from them, from the couple, to see if they wanted to help

shape the narrative by talking to, to their, getting their friends to talk to me. They, they did think about this, or Sarah did, and then decided not to. But I then found that when I was interviewing some people, literally halfway through the interview, they would get a text saying, you know, basically don't talk to him. We had intimidating. letters sent before the book was published. We had threats that they were monitoring my social media and watch it. The Foreign Office forbade ambassadors to talk to me. I had four years of putting in FOI requests to the Foreign Office and Department of Business and basically all of them been batted back. And there have been clearly attempts to undermine the credibility of the book

and my authority as a writer, even in the last week. So it's gloves off. I need Harry on my side, really, here. But, yeah, no, I mean, you know, and I think this is, you know, they say never complain, never explain, but of course there's a very sophisticated relationship between some of the tame press fed their pieces and the palace. And, you know, that's clearly going to come into play.

Andrew, in your reporting of this book, which took four years, what most surprised you about Prince Andrew? Well, I think just the brazenness with which he leveraged his raw position to make money for himself personally, shoehorning people into official meetings who were working for him, the fact the Queen sort of allowed this and in fact colluded with it. And I think just the sort of extravagance of Sarah Ferguson's spending and his own sexual addiction, just the sheer numbers of people and his behaviour. Well, the book is unput-downable and, I think, a devastating portrait of a modern prince who perhaps felt he didn't have a role, tried to carve out a role, and instead got used by other people to his detriment.

How do you think it ends for Andrew? Well, it's a good question. I mean, I think he's going to just quietly drift from view. He will be there going to family events, I think, away from the camera. You know, he's now a retired man. He can live the life a retired man. He goes shooting. He plays golf.

He sits and watches videos. And I think he's going to have a pretty quiet life, in effect, under house arrest. I can't see it changing. But he may. He's such a character who can't really sort of see what's really happening to him. He may well just continue his business activities and think, he can get away with it and the whole thing will go quiet for a while and he'll be fine to carry on as he was. I think the interesting question is how it will affect Sarah Ferguson, who has another volume of memoir coming out this year,

which will no doubt talk about her cancer and a charity work and how far attitudes towards her have changed as a result of the book. I mean, I think that's the interesting question. Andrew, thank you very much. Good luck with the book. And it's hard not to read it and just think what a waste of privilege. And what a waste of two lives? Yeah, a man who had everything at his fingertips without the awful dread of ascending to the throne. So the incredible advantages of being a royal without the actual ultimate responsibility of being the monarch.

And yet he's been unable to use his life usefully. Exactly. I mean, in some ways, I think being a spare is great. You know, they complain about it. But it is a tragic story, you know, a man brought down by hubris. Andrew, thank you very much. Good luck with the book. Andrew's book is called The Rise and the Fall of the House of Windsor, and it's hard not to imagine that everybody at Boulmoral, that rather bleak Scottish castle where the Royal Family loved to repair over the summer. It's hard not to believe that this book isn't on every single side table. I'm sure that all sitting around discussing it and trying to figure out what to do with the second son, Prince Andrew. Anyway, Andrew Loney's given them some ideas, which is basically to phase him quietly out.

But it is hard not to think of just what a waste of privilege of a remarkable life and what it could have been. Anyway, if you have been, thank you for joining us today. Please feel free to share this episode. Subscribe to the podcast and subscribe to The Daily Beast. We keep you up to date with everything that's going on. And we are independent media. So we love your support. And don't forget, as our first lady would encourage us to do, be Beast.

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