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Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein bonded over “money and sex.”
The claim was made by author Andrew Lownie, who has written an explosive new book about the disgraced Duke of York, “Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York.” It’s based on years of investigations and interviews with hundreds of sources. It aims to examine the late queen’s favorite son and his relationship with the convicted sex offender.
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“I think the reason that Epstein and Andrew were such good friends was that they were interested in the same stuff, basically money and sex,” Lownie told Fox News Digital.
“Andrew gave Epstein respectability and some useful contacts from his role as a special trade envoy… And for Andrew, Epstein provided someone who would pay [his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson’s] bills, someone who provided a ready supply of women and also, as he said in the Newsnight interview, had some useful contacts for him.”
“It was a win-win situation for both of them,” Lownie added.
A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace told Fox News Digital they don’t answer for Andrew, 65, as he’s no longer a working royal. A rep for the Duchess of York didn’t immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell weeks after his 2019 arrest. The American financier was awaiting trial on U.S. federal sex trafficking charges involving dozens of teenage girls and young women, some as young as 14. Investigators ruled his death a suicide.
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Epstein’s former girlfriend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted in 2021 for helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by him. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Andrew stepped down as a royal in 2019 following a disastrous interview with Newsnight, where he attempted to address concerns about his links to Epstein. The televised sit-down backfired when the British prince failed to explain his continued association with Epstein or show sympathy for his victims.
Andrew is believed to have first met Epstein in 1999 through Maxwell, the BBC reported. Lownie is adamant that their friendship dates back to 1991. Meanwhile, Maxwell told a top federal prosector in interviews released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday that Epstein didn’t know Andrew in the ’90s.
“I did not introduce [Epstein] to Prince Andrew or to Sarah Ferguson,” she claimed. “That is a flat untruth… I’m English and my close friends are all close friends with Sarah and Andrew. And I would not say that I was close friends with Andrew before, but certainly we were friendly and certainly his best friends, some of them, are very close with me.”
Lowie said he stands by his findings.
“We don’t really know much about what Epstein and Andrew were up to in this period,” said Lownie. “There’s still a lot of investigation to be done. The problem is that Epstein is dead now. [Accuser] Virginia Giuffre is dead. Maxwell is in prison… It’s going to be really difficult unless the protection officers are prepared to talk, and they aren’t, to find out really what was going on.”
“We’ve got some people who have come forward,” Lownie shared. “If they could be persuaded to say a bit more, or if some of the legal dispositions were unsealed, then I think there would be some new information.”
Lownie claimed in his book that, in 2007, Epstein said of Andrew that “we are very similar – we are both serial sex addicts… We have shared the same women. From the reports I’ve got back from them, he’s the most perverted animal in the bedroom. He likes to engage in stuff that’s even kinky to me – and I’m the king of kink!”
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Lownie made a similar claim in the 2023 A&E docuseries, “Secrets of Prince Andrew,” which featured interviews with palace insiders, lawyers and experts. At the time, an attorney for the royal told Fox News Digital they had no comment.
“[Andrew and Epstein] became extremely close,” Lownie claimed in the documentary. “You know, real best buddies. There were seven different numbers for Andrew in Epstein’s little black book. He had the most intimate details of Andrew’s life. Epstein said, ‘There’s only one person who likes sex more than me, and that’s Andrew.’”
Andrew’s sexual appetite created an opportunity for Epstein to target him, Lownie insisted to Fox News Digital.
“I think it was very easy for Epstein to prey on Andrew because he knew he had these weaknesses,” Lownie explained. “One was his greed and the need to pay off Fergie’s debts. And the other was that he had this sexual addiction, rather like Epstein. Epstein needed constant sexual gratification, and Andrew was the same. He was not ruled, shall we say, by his head in a lot of these things.”
British royals expert Hilary Fordwich agreed.
“Andrew was nicknamed ‘Randy Andy’ by the press due to his notorious promiscuity, high-profile flings, pursuits of numerous sexual partners, lack of discretion and shallow materialism,” she told Fox News Digital. “Beyond depravity matching depravity, Epstein craved legitimacy and status, while revolting Andrew was seeking gratification. He didn’t care about the traditional values of decorum and royal duty.”
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“Embracing such revolting, shallow values, putting privilege over responsibility made Andrew a desirable ally for Epstein, who was bent on cultivating a powerful club of revolting men with similar depraved desires, valuing access and influence over personal integrity,” Fordwich shared.
“To make matters worse, if that is possible, was Andrew’s arrogant, dismissive attitude regarding problematic associations. He repeatedly justified or minimized his relationship with Epstein even after the latter’s conviction, such as in his car crash BBC interview. That total lack of self-awareness and disregard for consequences fed right into Epstein’s warped way of entrapping others.”
According to the interviews shared by the DOJ, Maxwell insisted she never introduced the two men. She alleged they had an “acquaintanceship” through Ferguson.
“I think Sarah is the one that pushed that,” Maxwell alleged. “… I wasn’t communicating with Andrew, I wasn’t in touch with him. And I know this because I was annoyed, and I felt left out, and I felt disrespected, and I was like, ‘This is weird.’ I couldn’t even imagine Epstein and Andrew together. And I thought that Sarah was trying to put the moves on Jeffrey, if I’m being honest, and I thought the whole thing was annoying, and I was pissed off.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Ferguson for comment.
Lownie claimed that when it came to the queen, she turned a blind eye.
For Lownie, the most surprising thing he uncovered was not about Andrew, but “about the queen.” He claimed the late monarch turned a blind eye by shutting down any stories about her beloved son.
“When complaints were brought to her about his behavior, whether it was his financial irregularities or his sexual behavior, she didn’t want to know… that was a shocking thing [to me].”
“We thought the queen put the monarchy ahead of her own family, but here she clearly had a soft spot for her son,” said Lownie.
In “Secrets of Prince Andrew,” Dickie Arbiter, former Buckingham Palace press secretary, said that if the queen had known about who Epstein was, she would have ordered her son to end the friendship – and he would have obeyed.
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“Unfortunately, the late queen was a bit soft on her children,” he said. “But, given all the facts, she would’ve hardened and would’ve said no. He always listened to his mother, always. The problem is, Andrew would do things without telling anybody.”
Lownie wrote it was easy to see “how Epstein played Andrew.”
“The prince was a useful idiot who gave him respectability and access to political leaders and business opportunities,” he wrote.
“What drew Andrew to Epstein? An opportunity to join the super-rich and a lifestyle to which the duke had long aspired, a supply of available women, a chance to make money himself, and someone who would bankroll his life as well as settle his ex-wife’s debts. Both men, ostensible friends, used each other, but it was an unequal relationship. According to one of Prince Andrew’s friends, Epstein to Andrew ‘was like putting a rattlesnake in an aquarium with a mouse.’”
In recent years, Andrew has been attempting to keep a low profile. It’s a far cry from his days as “Air Miles Andy.” In 2022, he was stripped of his royal patronages and military titles.
“He’s basically under house arrest at Royal Lodge, [which is] not a bad place to be,” said Lownie. “He goes riding in Windsor Great Park. He plays golf. He does seem to get away on shooting weekends, either hosted by him or at friends’ estates. He watches a lot of TV, which he’s always done. He’s quite a loner. I think he sees a little bit of his family, but the daughters seem to be distancing themselves a bit. His ex-wife lives there, but she travels frequently. So she’s not always there. He’s got staff, but a lot of the staff have been laid off.”
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“It’s a pretty sad story from the man who was this great heartthrob, the war hero, the poster boy for the monarchy, who’s now living, in some ways, the life of a hermit,” he added.
Earlier this year, emails published in court documents showed that Andrew was in contact with Epstein longer than he previously admitted, the BBC reported.
Virginia Giuffre accused Andrew and other influential men of sexually exploiting her as a teenager trafficked by Epstein. She claimed in one of her lawsuits that she had sex with the royal three times: in London during her 2001 trip, at Epstein’s New York mansion when she was 17, and in the Virgin Islands when she was 18.
Maxwell claimed that a photo widely circulated, showing Andrew with his arm around Giuffre, was “fake.”
“… What I can absolutely, categorically say is that I never, at any time, set Andrew up to have relations with… any other human being, ever,” she alleged.
Andrew previously rejected Giuffre’s allegations and said he did not recall having met her. In 2022, he settled with Giuffre for an undisclosed sum, agreeing to make a “substantial donation” to her survivors’ organization. British newspapers reported amounts for the settlement ranged from $6 million to $16 million.
A statement filed in court said that the prince acknowledged Epstein was a sex trafficker and Giuffre was “an established victim of abuse.”
Giuffre died by suicide in April. She was 41.
