Tabloid fodder

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This article was published 30/11/2019 (2302 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Poor Prince Andrew.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the Duke of York: he was forced to step down from his royal duties, charitable organizations are abandoning him in droves and the Queen reportedly cancelled a 60th birthday party she planned to throw in honour of her second son.

It all stems from the firestorm of controversy over a BBC interview wherein Andrew tried to explain his onetime friendship with convicted American child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in prison in August while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

The interview saw the prince attempt to distance himself from Epstein and clear up accusations against himself, but it turned into a PR nightmare.

“I expected a train wreck. That was a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion level bad,” Charlie Proctor, editor of the Royal Central website, said.

Andrew has been accused of having sex with then-17-year-old Victoria Roberts (an alleged Epstein victim now known as Virginia Giuffre), which he strenuously denies. Roberts says she was forced to have sex with the prince.

Throughout the interview, Andrew confirmed his friendship with Epstein, which continued even after the financier was convicted in 2008 for soliciting a minor for prostitution. Many have accused him of failing to show sympathy for the accusers.

But the Duke of York is not the only British royal whose behaviour has sparked bad press, as we see from today’s less-than-regal list of Five Infamous Royal Scandals:

5) The racy royal: Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York

The saucy scandal(s): What better place to start than with the woman who was once married to the beleaguered Duke of York. After a whirlwind romance, Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, more commonly known as “Fergie,” tied the knot in 1986 and had two daughters together before deciding to separate in 1992 and officially divorce in 1996.

The two are on good terms now, with the duchess even standing by Andrew’s side in his current controversy. but it wasn’t always so amicable. Five months after announcing their separation, the duchess became embroiled in the infamous “toe-sucking scandal,” in which surreptitiously taken photos of her sunbathing topless with an American financial manager were published in the British tabloid Daily Mirror.

“The intimate pictures show Texan millionaire John Bryan kissing and sucking the Duchess’ toes and the arch of her foot,” The Mirror wrote recently. “They also showed the couple kissing and embracing, and frolicking in the pool.”

According to the Mirror, on the morning the photographs were published, Ferguson was staying at Balmoral with the rest of the Royal Family. Royal writer Richard Kay claimed in the Daily Mail newspaper that he received a message via pager from Princess Diana the night before the photos hit the newspaper stands. Diana’s message was simple: “The redhead’s in trouble.”

The duchess faced widespread public ridicule, as she did when the News of the World caught her red-handed agreeing to give access to her royal ex-husband — Britain’s special trade representative at the time — in exchange for half a million pounds. An undercover reporter — known as the Fake Sheikh — posed as a businessman and recorded his entire conversation with the financially strapped mother of Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. “Look after me, and he’ll look after you. I can open any door you want,” the Duchess was heard to say. She later apologized and blamed her stressful financial situation.

4) The racy royal: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex

The saucy scandal(s): He’s comfortably married to American actor Meghan Markle now, but during his younger years, Harry — youngest son of Prince Charles and the late Diana, Princess of Wales — managed to stir up more than a few controversies.

In 2005, the then-20-year-old Harry left people outraged when he dressed up as a Nazi for a friend’s fancy dress birthday party. He was heavily criticized by politicians, religious leaders and charities after the photos were leaked. Pictures on the front page of the Sun tabloid under the humiliating headline “Harry the Nazi” showed the young royal in a shirt with an eagle insignia on the front and a Swastika armband. He was holding a drink and a cigarette in the shot. The Prince was third in line to the throne at the time, and Clarence House quickly issued a statement saying he was sorry if he had caused any offence.

“Prince Harry has apologized for any offence or embarrassment he has caused. He realizes it was a poor choice of costume,” the statement said.

Reports at the time suggested he received another dressing down from his dad.

It wasn’t the first time questionable decisions earned him unflattering headlines around the world. Even more embarrassing was the time in 2012 when leaked photos showed him gallivanting without clothing in Las Vegas after a rollicking game of strip billiards.

According to news reports, the 27-year-old prince was on a break before he was set to serve in Afghanistan for the British army. After the incident, Harry apologized and a year later said: “At the end of the day I probably let myself down, I let my family down, I let other people down. But it was probably a classic example of me probably being too much army, and not enough prince. It’s a simple case of that.”

Noted the entertainment website TMZ.com at the time: “Prince Harry put the crown jewels on display in Vegas this weekend.” For a time, the young royal was dubbed “The Party Prince.”

3) The racy royal: Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

The saucy scandal: Having a love life is never easy, especially when you’re the only sibling of the Queen. In what was the biggest royal scandal since her uncle Edward’s abdication of the throne, Princess Margaret fell in love with RAF Group Captain Peter Townsend. Townsend was equerry — an officer of the British royal household — to her father, King George VI.

“It first came to light at the Queen’s coronation when the new monarch’s younger sister was seen picking a piece of fluff from Townsend’s uniform,” according to the Daily Mirror newspaper.

In 1952, when Elizabeth became queen, Townsend divorced his first wife and proposed to Margaret the following year; however, the Queen had to give her permission under the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, and she refused after pressure from Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Church of England because Townsend was a divorcee.

In 1955, the Queen and the new PM, Anthony Eden, hatched a plan that would allow the marriage but remove Margaret and any children from the line of succession. But the princess decided to end the relationship, saying in a statement: “I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend. I have been aware that, subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract a civil marriage, but mindful of the Church’s teachings that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before others.”

In 1960, she married photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones, but they drifted apart amid reports of extramarital affairs. The final blow came when photographs showing Margaret and Roddy Llewellyn, 17 years her junior, cavorting in swimsuits were published. The press portrayed Margaret as a predatory older woman and Llewellyn as her toyboy lover. Labour MPs branded her a “floosie” and a “royal parasite.”

A heavy smoker, her health gradually declined and she died in 2002.

2) The racy royal(s): Charles and Diana, the Prince and Princess of Wales

The saucy scandal(s): This fairy tale reached its zenith on July 29, 1981, when 20-year-old Diana married Charles at St. Paul’s Cathedral in what truly was the wedding of the century. It was watched by a global audience of 750 million while 600,000 lined the streets of London to catch a glimpse of the bride. The commoner became the first British citizen to marry an heir to the British throne since 1659, when the future James II married Anne Hyde. They famously had two sons, William and Harry.

Behind the fairy tale, however, lurked darkness. Charles had never gotten over his first true love, Camilla Parker Bowles. Diana and her prince separated in 1992 in the wake of the “Camillagate” tapes wherein embarrassing intimate conversations between Charles and the married Camilla were published in the tabloids. The recording of the telephone call, said to have been made by a radio enthusiast using a high-tech scanning device, featured Charles allegedly telling Camilla he would like to “live inside your trousers.” When the then Mrs. Parker Bowles joked, “What are you going to turn into, a pair of knickers?” the heir to the throne replied, “Or, God forbid, a Tampax. Just my luck,” according to news reports at the time.

Two years later, Charles admitted to adultery in a televised interview. Diana confessed her own indiscretions in 1995, but scored points by famously saying: “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”

In an interview with the BBC, Charles was asked if he had tried to be faithful to Diana. “Yes, absolutely,” he replied. But when the presenter said “And you were?” The prince replied: “Yes, until it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried.”

Eventually, Charles and Camilla both obtained divorces and married in 2005, years after Diana’s tragic death in an Aug. 31, 1997, car crash in Paris while being pursued by paparazzi.

1) The racy royal: King Edward VIII

The saucy scandal: When Prince Andrew backed away from his royal duties earlier this month, it was a bit of a seismic shift. When King Edward VIII abdicated the throne in 1936, there was a full-fledged political and cultural earthquake.

It’s one thing to throw in the towel because you’re tired of playing professional football or taking a pounding in the boxing ring, but it’s quite another to pull the plug when you’re the king of England, which is to say that in the history of abandoning the field of play for personal reasons, no one has done it in more spectacular fashion than Edward, who opted to give up the crown in order to marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.

Yes, he did it for love.

After ruling for less than one year, Edward became the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne. The problem was the British government, public and the Church of England couldn’t handle the notion of a divorcee as a prospective queen, or even being that close to the Royal Family. Winston Churchill, then a Tory backbencher, was the only notable politician to support Edward.

On the evening of Dec. 11, he gave a radio address in which he famously explained his decision to abdicate, saying: “I have found it impossible to carry on the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge the duties of king, as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.” On Dec. 12, his younger brother, the Duke of York, was proclaimed King George VI.

Sadly, Edward was also infamous for being such a poor judge of character that he thought the Nazis were well-meaning chums before Germany declared war.

“This massive royal scandal changed the line of succession entirely, ultimately, pre-determining that 10-year-old Princess Elizabeth would become the future queen of England,” Marie Claire magazine said. Which is how a lovesick king hit No. 1 on our list of royal scandals.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca