Prince Andrew faces being stripped of working royal role over Jeffrey Epstein interview Royal source says disastrous appearance may persuade Prince Charles to eject brother from Windsor payroll

The Duke of York faces being eased out of his role as a working royal following his calamitous television interview over his links to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

A royal source told i that Prince Andrew’s disastrous performance had made it “somewhat more likely” that he will be sidelined as a frontline member of the royal family once his brother acedes to the throne.

As the interview continued to generate headlines, the duke, who had hoped his Newsnight appearance would draw a line under the long-running controversy about his decade-long friendship with Epstein, was said to have told friends that he regretted not expressing sympathy for the financier’s victims.

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Prince Andrew insisted during the interview that his links to Epstein had had “some seriously beneficial outcomes” as he once again denied claims from one of the businessman’s teenage victims, Virginia Giuffre, that he had slept with her three times.

Lower profile

The widespread criticism of the duke’s “excruciating” attempted defence and the subsequent demands from US lawyers representing Epstein’s victims that he now give evidence under oath have now given added impetus to suggestions that Prince Andrew will find himself with a lower profile in the coming years.

The duke has in recent years sought to carve out a role as a champion of new businesses with his Pitch@Palace scheme to encourage young entrepreneurs. But the enlivened controversy over Epstein now threatens to overshadow Prince Andrew’s projects.

But, it emerged that the accountancy giant KPMG has decided not to renew its sponsorship of the Pitch@Palace scheme. Buckingham Palace said the contract had ended last month while another sponsor, Astra Zeneca, said it was reviewing its support, which is due to expire at the end of the year.

Prince Charles, who is said to have considered the BBC interview as “misguided”, is widely believed to have clashed in the past with his brother over the public role of his family and was already planning a wide-ranging review of the system of working royals.

‘Terminal reverse’

One senior source told i: “There is a feeling that the events of the weekend make it somewhat more likely that the Prince of Wales will decide that his plans for a slimmed down monarchy once he succeeds [to the throne] don’t encompass the Duke of York.

“It is not a move that the Queen would be likely to make. But it is no secret that the duke has wanted a higher profile for his family. The Newsnight interview has certainly put that process in reverse, perhaps terminally.”

It emerged that as Prince Andrew was recording his interview in Buckingham Palace, the Duchess of York was in Saudi Arabia as a guest of Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman, who has been accused of sanctioning the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Buzzfeed website pointed out that Sarah Ferguson, who continues to live under the same roof as her ex-husband, paid tribute to the oil-rich kingdom’s “good leadership” in an interview with a Saudi newspaper.

1.7m viewers

The decision-making process that led to the extraordinary Newsnight interview, which garnered 1.7m viewers, remained unclear amid claim and counter-claim that the enterprise had been formally approved by the Queen.

Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis said she and her production team had been left under the impression that approval had been sought and given by the monarch but Buckingham Palace sources said the Queen had only been aware of the interview, rather than giving formal approval.

The apparent desire of Prince Andrew to chart his own PR course, alongside the Duke of Sussex’s decision last month to publicly confront parts of the tabloid press over its coverage of his wife, prompted the BBC’s royal correspondent, Nicholas Witchell, to suggest that the Queen no longer has “strong central control” of the Windsor clan.

‘Doing it their way’

Mr Witchell said: “The Queen was informed [of the Newsnight interview] but she is 93 years old now, and she is not exercising the strong control she had, if she ever did.

“There is now a lack of strong central control. We have had two episodes within just a couple of months, of senior members of the royal family doing it their way.”

The extent to which Prince Andrew has failed in his desire for the Newsnight interview to draw a line under what one aide described as “the sniping and the commentary” was underlined when sources were forced to deny a claim from a former Downing Street adviser that the duke used the N-word in a meeting he attended.

N-word claims

Rohan Silva, a former aide to David Cameron and who is of Sri Lankan heritage, told the Evening Standard that the prince had responded to a question about whether the Whitehall department responsible for trade could be doing a better job by saying: “Well, if you’ll pardon the expression, that really is the [N-word] in the woodpile.”

Palace sources told the Standard that the phrase had not been used and the duke would not use such language.