Prince Andrew: The spoilt brat who grew up to love women, fast cars and the 'Do You Know Who I Am' lifestyle
Of the three brothers Prince Charles, Edward and Andrew - Andrew was always considered the more good-looking one. He has always been a lady's man and even his marriage with Sarah Ferguson generated as much hype as did Prince Charles' to Diana. But somewhere down the line, the prince lost his charm and then more skeletons came tumbling out of the royal's closet. The latest thorn in his side being his association with disgraced and now dead financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Over the last few months, Prince Andrew has made headlines for his association with late pedophile Epstein which saw the Queen strip him of his royal titles, becoming the royal family's version of the 'pervy uncle'. He was also called out and shunned over his lack of sympathy for Epstein's minor victims, some of whom had even accused Prince Andrew of sexual abuse. There was time when he used to be hailed as a military hero who had put his life on the line for his country but now the 'Making of Prince Charmless' a new biography delves into the past of Andrew. It lists out the red flags that may have been there all along, reports Daily Mail.
Andrew grew up very spoilt and unlike his siblings Prince Edward, Prince Charles, and Princess Anne, he got away with just about everything. He would often play pranks and was a handful to deal with. The book recounts among other instances, a time when he sprinkled itching powder in his mother’s bed and also climbed on to the roof of Buckingham Palace to turn the TV aerial so that the Queen wouldn’t be able to watch the racing at Sandown Park. With that last prank, however, even his mother admitted: ‘He is not always a little ray of sunshine about the home.’
Post a spoilt childhood, a naughty and bossy Andrew had been sent to a boarding school in Scotland where he was not very well-liked. His fellow students would often refer to him as being 'big-headed' and 'boastful'. At school, they dubbed him ‘The Sniggerer’ because he kept telling blue jokes and then laughing so hard, according to one boy, that ‘you [couldn’t] understand the punch-line.’
By the time, he was 16 he had become a teenage heartthrob and attended the 1976 Montreal Olympics with his parents. One Canadian newspaper had dubbed him as "Six foot of sex appeal" and he would receive many requests for dates.
When he went to Canada a year later, he was greeted by a bevy of screaming girls at the airport. Andrew also changed his dressing style after all the newfound attention he was getting and started to wear jeans and open-necked t-shirts. Back in Scotland, Andrew also had many girlfriends but was never in any long-term relationship. Some of the girls in his school whom he liked, would call themselves 'Andy's Harem' while the girls he ignored would say, 'Whose turn is it on the royal rota today?'
It is also believed that Andrew's manners were reserved for women only and he was not a very pleasant person. A bodyguard Ken Wharfe recalled how he was asked to move from a window seat on a plane from Balmoral as he was blocking Andrew's view. Wharfe had said, "His manners are just awful." A royal aide also revealed, "I’ve seen him treat his staff in a shocking, appalling way. He’s been incredibly rude to his personal protection officers, throwing things on the ground and demanding they “f***ing pick them up”. No social graces at all. Sure, if you’re a lady with blonde hair and big boobs, I bet he’s utterly charming."
After he left school, he had joined the Navy as a pilot and had attended the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. His brother and heir to the throne, Prince Charles, had also attended the same institution but unlike his brother, Andrew showed up on his first day in his new Ford Escort RS 2000 despite the fact that cars were banned for recruits. It is also believed that his fellow cadets hated the privileges he had including one where people had to salute his car when he drove around the base. One cadet shared that he would often play the 'I am a prince' card.
Andrew landed in a lot of trouble when earlier this year, he was accused by one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre of sleeping with her when she was underage. Virginia Roberts alleged that she was forced to have sex with the prince on three occasions after she was introduced to him in 2001 by Epstein and his girlfriend, socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. She was a 17-year-old teenager at the time and said she'd been trafficked by Epstein and worked for him as a masseuse.