In 2011, the man formerly known as Prince Andrew was a British trade ambassador in good standing with his extended family. A set of serious allegations would eventually lead to a permanent change in his reputation.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor—as King Charles III effectively rechristened his brother last month—has officially been ejected from whatever vestiges of royal status he still had. But in hindsight, early 2011 represented the turning point.
That February, the New York Post published a photo of the then prince walking with the billionaire and convicted pedophile in Central Park, taken about a few months before, with the headline: “Prince and Perv.” A few weeks later, the Mail on Sunday published a photograph of Andrew, Ghislaine Maxwell, and a young Virginia Roberts Giuffre. In April 2025, his accuser Giuffre died by suicide, leaving behind a memoir that describes her allegations in further detail. By continuing to deny the allegations vociferously, Andrew avoided the worst of the fallout in 2011. When the story emerged again in 2015, the relationship between the media and the royals was changing, due to both the speed of social and digital media, and a literal changing of the guard, in which the younger royals became the primary objects of interest. This round of stories reportedly prompted Epstein to take an aggressive posture in the courts and against the media, and this week’s emails outline his approach. He pressured journalists and contacted publicists, urging them to attack his accusers. Some emails show him expressing concern about information someone might find when they google him. During this time, Epstein continued to communicate with his high-profile friends. When Giuffre filed a lawsuit against Maxwell in 2015, the allegations were included, and the palace once again denied. In March of that year, Andrew decided to address the allegations publicly during a trip to Davos. “I must, and want, for the record, to refer to the events that had taken place in the last few weeks,” he told the BBC. “I just wish to reiterate and to reaffirm the statements which have already been made on my behalf by Buckingham Palace. My focus is on my work.” When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle married in 2018, Andrew was still a working royal, but a casual onlooker would be forgiven for failing to notice his role as colonel in chief for obscure military regiments or the Shark Tank–style events he hosted at Buckingham Palace. Andrew and Fergie were minor figures in royal coverage even in October of that year, when their daughter Princess Eugenie married Jack Brooksbank. By the fall of 2018, the press ecstasy around Harry and Meghan curdled into critical and often racist stories about Meghan. A more negative press attitude toward the royals—in line with public opinion about them—had already been established by July 2019, when Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges, and a new generation of royal watchers learned about Andrew’s involvement with Epstein. Frenzied interest in Meghan and Harry coincided with the beginning of Andrew’s public downfall. Back in 2019, the Daily Mail captured the general air of ongoing royal scandal in one blaring yellow headline: “PRINCES’ TURBULENT TIMES.” When Andrew attempted to explain himself to Emily Maitlis on the BBC’s Newsnight. In November of 2019, the network aired an instantly disastrous interview, which was so brutal it’s since inspired not one, but two televised retellings. For years, Andrew raised questions about the authenticity of the photograph of him and Giuffre, telling Maitlis that “nobody can prove whether or not that photograph has been doctored, but I don’t recollect that photograph ever being taken.” But in private, in another 2011 email, Epstein said that the photograph was legitimate. “Yes she was on my plane, and yes she had her picture taken with Andrew, as many of my employees have,” Epstein wrote. Despite his public embarrassment, Andrew still lurked in the corners of the royal story, living in a ritzy home a stone’s throw from Windsor Castle and donning a morning suit for funerals and Thanksgiving services. The effort to restore his stature in the public eye petered out eventually—stopping for good around 2022, when he settled a lawsuit with Giuffre, his most vocal accuser, and lost his final military honors. Now, he will be living out his days far from the center of the royal story.
Royals Prince Charles Jeffrey Epstein
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