When the former Prince Andrew was the U.K.’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment from 2001 to 2011, he used taxpayer-funded trips to “line his pockets,” play golf and “chase women,” including when he allegedly had 40 prostitutes brought to his five-star hotel room while on a four-day official trip to Thailand in 2006.
That’s according Andrew Lownie, a royal historian and biographer of the newly anointed Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, who was stripped of his royal titles Thursday over his friendship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. But to Lownie, speaking on the Daily Mail’s Deep Dive podcast, what’s even more concerning is that “the whole system protected and enabled” Andrew, starting at the top.
Yes, Lownie said that the late Queen Elizabeth II would have known about her reported favorite son’s leisure-time activities on his international trips, including his sexual exploits in Thailand.
“No, no. She knew exactly what was going on,” said Lownie, author of the new book, “Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York.” “I know that the PPOs, the police protection officers, always report(ed) back to the monarch if there’s anything. … I know people went and complained to the queen. I had talked to two permanent undersecretaries who complained to the queen’s private secretary, and they were basically sent away with a flea in their ear. ”
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – JUNE 09: Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Andrew, Duke of York speak with John Maynard, 80, from Stoke on Trent via the internet on a Nominet Trust display, during a reception to recognise the UK technology sector at Buckingham Palace on June 9, 2014 in London, England. (Photo by Steve Parsons – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
Lownie told host Sarah Vine that ambassadors sent in alarming reports about the former Duke of York’s actions in different countries, saying “Actually, he’s counterproductive.”
To underline Andrew’s “lack of moral boundaries,” Lownie brought up his “famous trip to Thailand.” Then in his 40s, the once-dashing royal, who had been dubbed “Randy Andy,” was going through “a mid-life crisis” and used his international trips as trade envoy to schedule personal vacations.
“He always puts in two weeks of ‘private time,’” Lownie said. “So, we pay for his holiday and then he goes off and does things.”
Andrew’s trip to Thailand was ostensibly to represent his mother and the British government at the 60th anniversary celebrations of the reign of King Bhumibol. Before his death in 2016, the much-loved king was the third-longest serving monarch of any country in the world.
Andrew insisted on staying in five-star hotel rather than at the embassy residence, which was typical of him, Lownie said.
“Andrew had 40 prostitutes brought in the space of four days,” Lownie continued. “This was all enabled by diplomats and others.”
Lownie said that these 40 Thai prostitutes were for Andrew’s pleasure only. He also said his account was verified by multiple sources, including a Reuters correspondent and a member of the Thai royal family. The 40 prostitutes claim also was known by “lots of journalists” and “certainly known about by the diplomats.”
Daily Beast royal reporter Tom Sykes reported that he had independently confirmed Lownie’s account of the prince’s “industrial-scale sexual consumption, carried out under the auspices of royal diplomacy, with the full apparatus of the British state behind him.”
Sykes quoted a diplomat in Bangkok who said: “Look, you work in an embassy in Thailand for any period of time and you see it all. Plenty of men come here for sex tourism. A blind eye gets turned. It’s part of the brand of Bangkok—it’s edgy, it’s permissive, it brings in foreign revenue.”
The diplomat cited Lownie’s book while telling Sykes: “What was so extraordinary about the Andrew thing was, as this new book says, the sheer number of girls going in and out of his room that weekend—and the fact that he just blatantly didn’t give a (expletive) who knew about it.”
“I had to laugh when I saw the book’s title was ‘Entitled,’” the diplomat said. “That is exactly right. The entitlement is absolutely insane. He assumes he can do whatever he likes, and no one will ever object or complain. For years, they didn’t.”
Lownie’s interview with the Deep Dive podcast actually took place the day before Buckingham Palace announced that King Charles had begun the process to remove “the style, titles and honors of Prince Andrew.” The palace said that the king’s younger brother would now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and that he had been served with formal notice to surrender his lease on Royal Lodge, his 30-room mansion near Windsor Castle, and move elsewhere. Rather scathingly, the palace statement said the censures against Andrew were “deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him.”
Demand had been growing on the palace to at least oust Andrew from Royal Lodge, where he and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson had been living rent free, after they surrendered their Duke and Duchess of York titles earlier this month over new revelations about their friendship with Epstein and allegations by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
The American woman, who died by suicide earlier this year, said in a newly released posthumous memoir that Epstein trafficked her to Andrew in 2001 when she was 17. She also said Andrew knew she was was 17 when they first had sex and that their third sexual encounter involved “an orgy” with Epstein and “eight other young girls” on Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean, the BBC reported.
In an interview with the BBC Thursday, Lownie said the palace is “finally taking some decisive action” against the disgraced former prince, after more than a decade of controversy about his ties to Epstein. The American financier was first investigated for sex trafficking in the 2000s and convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008. Both Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, continued to stay friends with him, even after they publicly claimed that they had cut ties. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 after being arrested on new sex trafficking charges.
Lownie said on the Deep Dive podcast that the British government needs to take further action against Andrew, beyond his sexual exploits, and explained that even a police investigation is warranted.
Lownie said his “real concern” about Andrew has to do with his time as trade envoy and his use of his position to further his own business interests. He said the files in the National Archives on Andrew as a trade envoy are closed, arguing that there is “a conspiracy of silence” around him.
Prior to his international trips, Mountbatten Windsor would send embassies a list of people he wanted to meet for his own personal business interests, Lownie said. The queen also had to have been aware of these questionable pursuits, Lownie continued.
“There was an episode in Oman we tried to (get) money off the Sultan, which caused a huge diplomatic incident,” Lownie said. Even more alarming, any diplomat who raised objections to Andrew’s activities would find themselves “posted to Nigeria,” Lownie said. “Naval officers who complained about Andrew found that they were suddenly on a mine sweeper, so the whole system protected and enabled Andrew,” he said.
At times, the queen found herself in the position of entertaining “dodgy dictators” on her son’s behalf, such as the presidents of Kazakhstan or Azerbaijan, Lownie said. “So I don’t think we can put all the blame on Andrew. I mean, he was in the sweetie shop and he was enabled.”
