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The royal family ‘wouldn’t be wise’ to let Prince Andrew come back into the fold, the Mail On Sunday’s editor-at-large said.
Speaking on this week’s episode of Palace Confidential, Charlotte Griffiths said it would be mistake to let the disgraced Duke of York make a comeback into royal life.
She said that unless Prince Andrew, 63, ‘created a time machine’, no one would be able to forget his toe-curling interview with Emily Maitlis or how he visited the late Jeffrey Epstein’s New York pad after the convicted sex offender was released from prison.
She added that King Charles ‘understands the Zeitgeist’ and can see there is ‘no appetite’ for his brother to come back into public life.
Charlotte was speaking to Richard Eden and Jo Elvin about rumours that the Duke of York is working on rehabilitating this image in order to make a return to public life.
Asked by Jo whether she thought the royal family should let Andrew make his comeback, Charlotte said: ‘I don’t think they’d be wise to.
‘Unless he kind of invents a time machine, in which we haven’t seen the Emily Maitlis documentary for example, we are always going to remember.’
Speaking on this week’s episode of Palace Confidential, the Mail on Sunday’s Editor-At-Large Charlotte Griffiths said it would be mistake to let the disgraced Duke of York make a come back into royal life
Charlotte said that unless Prince Andrew, 63, ‘created a time machine’, no one would be able to forget his toe-curling interview with Emily Maitlis or how he visited the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s New York pad after he was released from prison. Pictured last Christmas in Sandringham
‘I think Charles, as king, is actually going to understand the Zeitgeist quite well, and there isn’t a public appetite for him to come back so why bring him back ,it’s just a dangerous thing to do,’ she added.
Richard talked of reports that Andrew is trying to overturn the settlement he came to with Virginia Guiffre last year, which saw him pay a reporter £12million to the woman, who was accusing him of sexually asaulting her when she was 17.
Richard Eden added: ‘The problem for Andrew is the evidence that’s undisputable.
‘For example, he met with Epstein after Epstein was released from prison on sex crimes. He met him in New York, he stayed with him. That’s one fact.
‘And we’ve all seen the infamous photo of him with his arm around the 17-year-old woman,’ he said, reference to a picture where Andrew is posing with a 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre.
The expert said that King Charles understands that there is ‘no appetite’ for Andrew to come back into public life
Richard Eden said that even if Andrew managed to overturn the settlement he signed with Virginia Giuffre’s team last year, it won’t change the fact he showed poor judgment in the people he associated himself with
‘Ghislaine Maxwell has been casting doubt on the veracity of that photo, but that is the testimony of a jailed convicted sex trafficker.
‘The idea that it’s going to clear his name is very questionable,’ he said.
The royal expert added: ‘He might spend a fortune on legal fees in America and they might say that he’s inherited millions from his mother the Queen, but even if he managed to get this settlement overturn and his name cleared, it’s really about his judgment, isn’t it?
‘It’s about who he associated with,’ he added.
Charlotte and Richard’s comments come as fears are growing that King Charles’ coronation could be overshadowed by Prince Andrew’s sex abuse accuser following reports that Virginia Giuffre’s memoir could be released just weeks before the historic ceremony.
Multiple reports claim that Ms Giuffre, who has accused the Duke of York of sexually abusing her when she was a minor under US law, has signed a book deal worth millions.
She and Andrew, who has consistently denied the allegations, are said to have agreed to a gag clause which will expire in March, a year after they settled her civil rape claim against him.
Publishing insiders have said that Ms Giuffre’s memoir could be released just weeks before Charles’ coronation, telling The Mirror: ‘There will be no bigger occasion for her book than the crowning of the king.’
It comes as The Daily Mail reveals that Andrew told friends that his reputation could soon be restored.
Andrew has reportedly amassed a war chest worth as much as £10million in preparation to launch a legal challenge to his settlement with Ms Giuffre. The settlement is reported to be a considerable sum of money, with some estimates around £12million.
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that Andrew has been assuring friends there is about to be a development which will restore his tainted reputation.
The Duke of York is regularly voted the least popular member of the Royal Family and was stripped of his public duties following the revelations over his relationship with paedophile Epstein, yet his self-belief remains undiminished.
If not quite back up to the heroic status he enjoyed as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands War, then at least to what it was before he was photographed in New York’s Central Park talking to Epstein, shortly after the latter’s release from prison in 2009 after serving a puzzlingly short sentence for sex offences.
It is when out shooting that the Duke of York tends to talk most freely. ‘He says that details are about to be made public which will change people’s perceptions of him,’ Richard Eden was told. ‘He says that it will happen next month.’
Although Andrew, 62, does not elaborate further, the Mail on Sunday reported at the weekend that he is to launch a dramatic bid to overturn the multi-million-pound settlement he struck with the woman who accused him of sexual assault.
It is understood Andrew has consulted lawyers in an attempt to get Virginia Giuffre, formally known as Virginia Roberts, to retract her allegations and possibly secure an apology.
He was inspired to act after Ms Giuffre dropped her lawsuit against another man she accused of sexual assault, admitting that she ‘may have made a mistake’ in identifying him.
But Ms Giuffre has always maintained her case against the duke was valid.
Andrew’s relationship with Epstein was raised once again in a bombshell interview with Ghislaine Maxwell on TalkTV.
Speaking from prison, Maxwell said Prince Andrew was a ‘dear friend’ and said the accusations against him were unfounded.
In her first TV interview since she was jailed for child sex trafficking, the British socialite also claimed the infamous photo of her, Andrew and Ms Giuffre was a ‘fake’.
Andrew is expected to claim that he never met Ms Giuffre and to argue that the photo is fake in his future legal action.
However, several high-profile forensic experts who have examined the photo, in which Andrew has his arm around a young Ms Giuffre, have said they believe it to be real.
Ms Giuffre alleges she was groomed by pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Maxwell, and forced to have sex with him on several occasions.
Prince Andrew denied ever meeting Ms Giuffre in a disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019. He famously claimed he was at a Pizza Express in Woking at the time of one of the incidents mentioned by his accuser.
The son of the late Queen Elizabeth has suffered a series of humiliations since his car crash Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis in November 2019, as institutions have severed ties with him.
The most shattering blow, Mr Eden was told, was the abrupt curtailment of his role as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, reported by the Daily Mail just before Christmas.
He had already withdrawn from duties with the Grenadiers but had done so in the belief that he would, in time, return to them.
‘He says that Her Majesty [Queen Elizabeth] gave him her word that stepping down was only a temporary measure. He says that he wasn’t told in advance that he was about to be booted out, nor, obviously, that Camilla would be replacing him. He says that he just heard about it ”in the media”.’
