Prince Andrew was once said to be the Queen and Prince Philip’s favourite son, but it seems that title may be in serious doubt after a string of dramas that have seen the royal parents reading their second born son the riot act. With renewed media attention now on underage sex allegations against Andrew – which the Prince strenuously denies – his place in the palace hierarchy is in flux.
WATCH VIDEO ABOUT THE UNDERAGE SEX SCANDAL ANDREW HAS BEEN DRAWN INTO BELOW:
While the Queen is said to have once enjoyed Andrew’s more palatable antics, and Philip loved Andrew’s macho posing in the armed services, things first began to go seriously south for the prince in 1984, when he sprayed a group of journalists with paint during a press stop in Los Angeles.
The incident invoked fury from his parents.
‘Andrew’s romantic escapades, together with some much-publicised midshipman japes (he has a penchant for practical jokes), earned him the reputation of Royal Lout-About-Town, a label that saddened his mother and annoyed his father,’ reported journalist Sue Arnold in Vanity Fair.
‘Secretly, however, Prince Philip admires Andrew’s macho action-man image – it reminds him of his own youth.
‘It was only after the famous paint-spraying episode on an official visit to California, when Andrew doused a row of photographers with white paint, that his parents finally read the riot act.’
According to the New York Times, the arrogant paint spraying act reportedly concluded with the prince ‘wiping his hands on a piece of newspaper afterward, [and Andrew] said: ‘I enjoyed that.’
The smug smile was wiped off his face, however, when the Duke of Edinburgh phoned to express his fury.
‘The Duke of Edinburgh put in a furious transatlantic telephone call advising his second son to ‘pull his finger out’ and grow up,’ reports Arnold.
‘He was effectively confined to barracks and spent a chastened summer holiday cruising with his parents on the royal yacht off the Scottish coast.’
The Queen next let rip in the aftermath of Andrew’s marital rift with Sarah Ferguson, demanding that he and brother Prince Charles stop messing around and divorce their brides.
Royal reporter Phil Dampier says: ‘The Queen had summoned her children to what you can only describe as a summit, at Sandringham.
‘The monarchy itself was in peril, it was at such a low ebb.
‘It was in such a terrible state that they had to do something.
‘That was the turning point when the Queen said, enough is enough, you must now divorce. We have to draw a line under this.
‘Someone overheard the conversation, they’d discussed the fact that she was telling Charles and Andrew that they needed to get divorced.
‘Having been read the riot act by mummy, both Charles and Andrew were divorced within months.’
Now things are getting awkward again for the Prince, with the recent scandals surrounding Andrew’s association with disgraced US businessman Jeffrey Epstein, who has been arrested over teen sex-trafficking allegations.
This follows shocking claims by one of Epstein’s alleged victims that she was required to have sex with the prince three times – something the royal strenuously denies. Epstein has reportedly been accused of trafficking and molesting underage girls in Florida and New York.
The arrest has thrown a new spotlight on British royals Andrew and Fergie’s past ties with the accused sleaze. One of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, alleged the businessman forced her to have sex with a number of his high-flying friends while she was under age, including, she says, Prince Andrew.
The very serious and disturbing accusations, which put Andrew’s past missteps in the shade, are said to have ‘repulsed’ the Queen – and now it remains to be seen if Andrew can ever regain his favoured son status.
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