What’s next for Prince Andrew? Exile from public life and a tainted image, royal-watchers say.

4 yıl önce

LONDON — Prince Andrew is toast, in terms of returning to his previous day job as a senior working royal, a patron of charities and military figurehead. Those days are gone, likely forever.

That’s the consensus opinion of royal commentators, public relations experts, lawyers, biographers of the monarchy, victims rights groups and social media users in Britain — the day after the news broke that Andrew had settled the sexual abuse lawsuit brought by a woman who says she was trafficked to him by his former friend, the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The amount and details of the settlement with Andrew’s accuser, Virginia Giuffre, were not disclosed in a court filing in New York on Tuesday. Andrew has repeatedly denied the sex abuse allegations outlined in the lawsuit and has not been criminally charged. He does not admit wrongdoing in a statement on the settlement.

But in the court of public opinion, he is badly damaged.

“I think it’s all over for him, any kind of public life,” said Dickie Arbiter, the queen’s former press secretary and royal commentator.

“His reputation is toast, within and without the royal family. Nobody is going to want him back,” said Mark Stephens, a media attorney at the Howard Kennedy law firm in London, who has closely followed the case.

Stephens said Andrew had already been banished, metaphorically, to “social Siberia.”

British PR guru Mark Borkowski told The Washington Post that while “anything is possible,” he couldn’t imagine a return to public life for the 61-year-old former Royal Navy helicopter pilot.

He said perhaps Andrew, also known as the Duke of York, may hope the public has some sort of collective “memory loss” or “short-term amnesia.”

“He will want to come back but I don’t think the British public will accept it,” Borkowski added.

With the upcoming Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June, which will mark 70 years of Queen Elizabeth II on the throne, the Giuffre settlement comes as an attempt by Buckingham Palace to move on and away from Andrew’s scandals.

Andrew, viewed as a “bad uncle,” will be kept away from what will likely be the last big ceremonial event of Elizabeth’s reign, Borkowski predicted.

As for the size of the settlement, the Telegraph newspaper, citing its sources, reported the total could come to around $16 million. Others legal observers have told The Post they estimated a settlement of $10 million to $12 million.

Giuffre’s lawyer David Boies would not name the amount, but told the British Press Association: “I believe this event speaks for itself.” Andrew’s attorneys have not publicly commented, outside of the court document.

Questions will likely circulate over the details of the financial settlement, and from where the money to make the payments may have come, as the royal family is supported by a blend of private and public funds. Buckingham Palace has said that Andrew would be considered “a private citizen” in the legal proceedings.

Stephens, the media attorney, suggested it was likely that Andrew’s representatives would sometime soon make clear that the money did not come from the public purse — or his mother.

Andrew was stripped of his honorary military titles and royal patronages last month by the palace and also instructed not to use the honorific “His Royal Highness.” Andrew, though, is still a prince and the Duke of York, even as he was cast into the royal wilderness in a form of internal exile ahead of the settlement.

Andrew has also retained the title of a vice admiral of the navy — so far.

The British defense secretary, Ben Wallace, on Wednesday said it would be up to Buckingham Palace whether to take that title away.

“I think he effectively is acting now as a private citizen insofar as both addressing the challenges and the allegations, and I think there’s been obviously a payment and that is where he currently remains,” Wallace said.

Rachael Maskell, a Labour Party lawmaker in Parliament, who represents York Central, said Andrew should surrender his Duke of York title and that the people of York did not want to be associated with him.

Maskell tweeted: “A young woman trafficked & exploited. She bravely spoke out. People of privilege, position & power tried to suppress & silence. This must be a turning point, where York is not a Duke’s title but a people’s movement to fight for the rights of women & girls.”

The prince’s troubles with the public run deep — not only did he befriend Epstein, something he now says he regrets, Andrew was also close to the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking in federal court in New York late last year.

For years, Andrew has swore he didn’t recall having met his accuser, Giuffre, despite a photograph of him smiling with his arm around her waist.

In earlier statements, the prince’s legal team had described Giuffre’s claim that she was forced to have sex with Andrew on three occasions as “baseless.” The prince’s lawyers also said Giuffre was seeking a “payday.”

But now, in a remarkable turnaround, the parties agreed in a one-page statement that Andrew “never intended to malign Ms. Giuffre’s character, and he accepts that she has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks.”

The statement said the prince “commends the bravery of Ms. Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others.”

While the statement includes no admission of wrongdoing, the optics, and the extent of the turnaround, will also color public opinion.

“This idea that he can come back to official royal working life, I think is a fallacy. There is no route back for him,” Camilla Tominey, British royal commentator and broadcaster, told The Post.

Former palace courtiers have told The Post they imagined Andrew would continue to live a pampered lifestyle and socialize with his royal family — but all out of the public eye.

He would also be free to look for a job.

“He’s been repackaged as a private citizen,” Tominey added.

Tominey noted that the next two in line for the throne, Prince Charles and his son Prince William, are thought to be less sympathetic than Andrew’s mother, the queen, who has always indulged her second son.

“All of the royal family will feel tainted by association, that’s why they’ve removed him from the scene,” she said. “What you’re seeing is this triumvirate approach — three generations of monarchy all taking action to insulate the institution.”

Anna Whitelock, a historian of modern monarchy at City, University of London, told The Post the settlement statement pointed to where Andrew might seek to remerge: supporting charities for abuse victims.

The court document notes that the prince “pledges to demonstrate his regret for his association with Epstein by supporting the fight against the evils of sex trafficking, and by supporting its victims.”

However, Whitelock said it was “very doubtful” whether organizations in that arena may want to associate with him.

British legal experts say that Andrew may just donate to support charities fighting sex trafficking, rather than do any public campaigning.

Charles has already made known that when he becomes king, he is planning for a smaller footprint for the royal family — and one that now will likely not include Andrew.

“I think in many ways the impact is on him, and him alone. There is a clear sense that he has brought this on himself,” Whitelock said.