Before tying the knot with Princess Eugenie and welcoming two children into their lives, Jack Brooksbank was better known by his nickname, “barman Jack,” for his penchant for nightlife and frequent visits to clubs and bars.
This year, experts suggest that Jack Brooksbank’s 40th birthday celebrations will be markedly subdued. The ongoing controversy surrounding his wife’s family, particularly the ties between Andrew Mounbatten-Windsor, Sarah Ferguson, and the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, casts a shadow over potential festivities.
Sunday, May 3, is anticipated to be a day of modest, family-oriented celebrations.
This is a stark contrast to his vibrant early 20s when he was a familiar face at Mayfair’s chic venues. Reports even suggest that his 21st birthday bash, before meeting Eugenie, involved dancing with a naked performer.
Despite mellowing out by the time he met the royal, Jack was still fond of a lively evening, evidenced by 2018 photos showing him promoting Casamigos tequila—an endeavor tied to his role as an ambassador for the brand co-owned by George Clooney.
“Jack Brooksbank was the quintessential partygoer, not only relishing the social scene but also making it a career,” royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams shared with the Daily Mail.
‘His 40th birthday is on May 3, but this is not a time which will be easy for him to celebrate. He is married to Princess Eugenie, with two sons.
‘His sister-in-law is Princess Beatrice and there have been rumours over strain on her marriage to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi. Jack is reportedly far less social these days, partly as a result of his move to Portugal, but the scandal that has enveloped Eugenie’s parents Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson has undoubtedly cast a pall over all their lives and sightings are often reported in the Press.’
Before he married Princess Eugenie and they had two children together, he was known as ‘barman Jack’. Pictured in 2012, leaving a club in Mayfair
He continued: ‘The vast global publicity surrounding them and in particular their links to the deceased paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, has also reminded the public of the partying years of Eugenie and Beatrice – and questions arise over who was paying for their luxury lifestyle.
‘Their visit to see Epstein in Florida in 2009 with their mother Sarah Ferguson just after his release for child sex trafficking was simply bizarre and it has been noted that Beatrice was 20 and Eugenie 19 at the time. Both do useful charitable work although Eugenie has stepped down from Anti-Slavery International.
‘More may be released which will be embarrassing. Jack’s 40th will probably be marked in a low-key celebration during a tense time for anyone with connections to the York brand.’
He is the son of Old Etonian chartered accountant George Brooksbank and his wife Nicola. His great-great-grandfather is Viscount Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester and a peer in the 19th century.
Jack was educated at £10,000-a-term Stowe school in Buckinghamshire, whose former pupils include businessmen Richard Branson and John Sainsbury.
But rather than follow many of his peers into finance degrees and the City, he got the backing of his parents to go straight to work after school, heading for the hospitality industry.
He worked as a waiter and took a job at Chelsea’s Admiral Codrington, a gastropub just a short walk from Sloane Square.
It was there that he met businessman Piers Adam, who brought him around the corner to the Markham Inn, also in Chelsea.
Piers previously described him as a ‘phenomenal’ operator, who was happy dealing with staff and customer issues.
In his three years at the Markham, Jack got to know Prince Harry and his friend Guy Pelly and began to move in royal circles.
Jack said of his time at the pub: ‘At the Markham Inn, I had to deal with lots of strange people, and everyone was demanding. I also got to know the locals, which I loved.’
From there he went on to help run the Mahiki nightclub in Mayfair, one of the capital’s most exclusive nightclubs and also a favourite of Prince Harry and the young royals.
He also got on well with Eugenie’s best friend, actress Cressida Bonas, who was at that time Prince Harry’s girlfriend.
In 2018, Jack insisted he doesn’t spend much time drinking with revellers in his nightspots.
He previously said: ‘I leave work at 11pm and head home. I’m not a big drinker. People think we party a lot but actually we are very quiet. For me it’s a case of going home and watching a DVD.’
He was also said to be a stabilising influence on one-time ‘party princess’ Eugenie, and the couple were both said to have been seen out less as their relationship matured.
But he knew his way around a bar well enough to become a brand ambassador for Casamigos tequila, the brand set up by Clooney and his friends Rande Gerber and Mike Meldman.
He was made European Brand Director of the £45-a-bottle tequila business in September 2018.
And in 2022, Mr Meldman offered Jack a role in the marketing, sales and promotion branch of his property developing business, Discovery Land Company in Portugal.
In addition to his career in marketing, Jack set up his own wine business in 2016, for the ‘wholesale of wine, beer, spirit and other alcoholic beverages’.
The festivities on Sunday, May 3 are expected to be low-key and family-focused. Pictured with friend Maria Buccellati in 2021
It is said the move from ‘party fixer’ to wine merchant was an attempt to make himself look more respectable in case he were to attempt to join the Royal Family in future.
Jack has also previously spoken of his dream of opening a chain of country hostelries.
In 2013, he said: ‘I want to create a chain of pubs. It has been my dream since I was 18. I have fond memories of Sunday roasts in pubs with log fires, and it’s something I want to recreate. I love pubs and often go to my local for a pint.’
Jack and Eugenie’s paths first crossed in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier in 2010 when she was 20 and he was 24. At the time, Eugenie had been on holiday with her family.
Yet while ‘sparks’ flew from the beginning, things weren’t always quite so smooth sailing for the pair in the early days – with Eugenie juggling her time between London and New York, where she worked for former online auction house Paddle8.
At the time, Jack told the Daily Mail: ‘We spend a lot of time on Skype. It’s great. We are still very much together.’
In 2016, Jack was invited to spend time with the Royal Family at Balmoral.
Following an eight-year romance, Jack popped the question in January 2018 during a holiday to Nicaragua, but without a ring because he ‘didn’t want to do anything until Eugenie had signed off on it.’
The loved-up pair said ‘I do’ in October 2018 at Windsor’s St George’s Chapel in front of 850 guests, with more than three million viewers in the UK tuning in to watch the lavish affair on ITV.
According to reports at the time, Jack’s wedding speech was ‘filled with devotion to Eugenie’ and he told his new wife she ‘lights up his life and makes him feel complete’.
Jack’s speech was so moving that it was reported that the now disgraced Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor broke royal protocol to give him a hug.
The couple now have two children: August Philip Hawke Brooksbank, five, and Ernest George Ronnie, two.
Ernest’s name is a loving tribute to the youngster’s great-great-great grandfather George V, his paternal grandfather George Brooksbank and Sarah Ferguson’s father Major Ronald Ferguson.
Jack and Eugenie’s paths first crossed in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier in 2010 when she was 20 and he was 24. At the time, Eugenie had been on holiday with her family. Both pictured in 2025
It comes amid a turbulent time for the royals. And while Eugenie’s husband is said to be standing by his wife amid the ensuing Epstein scandal – he refuses to allow disgraced Sarah Ferguson to move into the family home, sources have claimed.
Jack’s ‘code of honour’ means that the loyal businessman will not ‘completely desert Andrew and Sarah’ but he has refused to ‘step into the line of fire himself’, an insider revealed to the Daily Mail.
‘His first loyalty has to be to his wife and their two young children. The whole sordid affair has already brought them a great deal of unwarranted attention and he won’t do anything to increase that.
‘Eugenie and Jack are resisting any suggestion from her mother that she should come and live with them. Because to be frank Sarah is difficult to live with and they don’t want the responsibility of looking after her at the moment.
‘That’s not to say they are not concerned about her welfare – they just don’t actually want her to be living with them, even temporarily,’ a second source declared.
Fergie’s emails to the paedophile financier revealed she took Eugenie and Beatrice to visit Epstein days after his release from prison for child prostitution offences.
Other messages from Fergie to Epstein even talked about Eugenie’s sex life, declaring in one that the princess had been away on a ‘s******* weekend’ when she was 19.
In February, Eugenie and Jack were seen for the first time since her father’s arrest on his 66th birthday.
Eugenie, who is 12th in line to the throne, was dressed casually in Nike trainers, blue leggings, a jacket and a North Face baseball cap as she grabbed a coffee in west London.
The princess was seen standing next to her husband, who was wearing a colourful bobble hat as he spoke on the phone on a street outside Hagen Espresso Bar in Notting Hill.
Her father had spent 11 hours in custody while officers searched his property at Sandringham before he was released under investigation.
Andrew was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office shortly after 8am when police descended on Wood Farm in Sandringham, Norfolk, where he had been living for the past fortnight.
