As the Jeffrey Epstein affair unleashed the media in the United States, a sex scandal splashed British royalty.
On August 8, 2019, American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was charged with sexual exploitation of minors and criminal associations to sexually exploit minors. A few hours after his incarceration, the tycoon was found dead in his cell. A suicide that still arouses controversy today. Some believe that he was killed so that his famous friends could escape charges or legal proceedings.
Hours after his death, more than 2,000 pages of testimony were made public by the Manhattan court. Some damning testimonies shed light on the accusations of several women against Prince Andrew. One of them, Virginia Roberts Giuffre claims to have been “lent” to Prince Andrew by Jeffrey Epstein in 2001 when she was only 16 years old. “Epstein forced me to have sex with Prince Andrew on several occasions. I had sex with him three times, including in an orgy. I knew he was a member of the British royal family, but I simply called “Andy,” reads the 2015 Florida court report.
Four years ago, these accusations had already made Buckingham Palace react: “It is categorically denied that the Duke of York had any form of contact or sexual relationship with Virginia Roberts. Any statement to the contrary is false and without foundation,” read a statement.
Today the British Royal Family once again denied the charges: “This relates to proceedings in the United States, of which the Duke of York is not a part. Any mention of unlawful acts towards minors is absolutely false”, can we read in a press release sent to NBC.
Long before this terrible news item, other scandals shook up the famous dynasty. Like Princess Margaret, the younger sister of Elizabeth II, who had an affair outside of marriage. In 1960 she married photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones in the UK, who became Earl of Snowdon. Unlike other weddings within the royal family, the event is considered “the first modern wedding” of the crown of England because of the famous artists invited to the festivities.
An idyllic life as a couple that gradually sinks adrift, due to their multiple infidelities. However, the most mediatic remains that of Princess Margaret. While on vacation in the Caribbean, on Mustique Island in 1976, Elizabeth II’s sister was caught flirting with another man on the beach by paparazzi. Shortly after, the identity of this stranger is lifted: it is Roddy Llewellyn. Yet another scandal that got the better of their couple, since the rebellious princess and the photographer divorced two years later. The first pronounced since that of Henry VII in the 16th century.
When Princess Margaret died in 2002 at the age of 71, her lover was present at her funeral. The opportunity for the Briton to return to their adventure in the media, claiming at the time not to have measured the fallout of such a flirtation with a member of the royal family. “I did not think about the consequences of such a high-profile case. I was just following my heart,” he confided in comments relayed by Gala. Since the former lover has fallen back into anonymity.
In 1986, Prince Andrew, the son of Queen Elizabeth II, married Sarah Ferguson and both became Duke and Duchess of York. If love at first sight seemed to be there, their union will also experience some flaws. Especially on the side of the young wife who quickly got tired of monarchical life.
Abandoned by an absent husband, alone with her two daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie of York, the Duchess creates a new scandal within the royal family. In 1992 during a family summer at Balmoral, we learned in the tabloid press that Prince Andrew’s wife had a good time in his absence, according to a sulphurous shot where we saw him lying near a pool in St Tropez, getting his feet licked (literally) by American financier John Bryan.
A fetishistic pleasure between two lovers that got the whole world talking. The whole royal family was furious, “Fergie” found herself in the embarrassment and persona non grata of the monarchy. The couple eventually divorced in 1996 and the former Royal Highness of the United Kingdom continues to do so much in the media and on social networks.
It was the scandal that shook Franco-British relations. In 2012, Closer magazine published sulphurous photos of Kate Middleton on vacation in the south of France. Appearing topless sunbathing with her husband Prince William, the front page of the French tabloid caused a huge outcry across the Channel.
Stolen intimate shots which obviously scandalized the entire royal family, initiating a legal battle against the people magazine. “This incident represented a serious invasion of privacy,” Kensington Palace said in a statement, noting that “the royal couple wished to assert that this type of unwarranted intrusion should not occur.”
In 2017, the leaders of the magazine Closer implicated, namely Laurence Pieau (editorial director) and Ernesto Mauri (publishing director), as well as two paparazzi who would have been designated as the authors of these stolen photos, had been declared guilty by the court of Nanterre. At the time, the publication of these photos had earned them a fine of 45,000 euros last year.
Before leading a tidy life with his wife Meghan Markle and son Archie, Prince Harry was long considered the enfant terrible of the royal family and for good reason. During his adolescence, the young man often made the front page of the country’s tabloids. In 2005, during a disguised party, the son of Lady Diana was photographed without his knowledge in a Nazi uniform. A scandal that had worldwide repercussions. A few days after the photos were published in the press, the prince finally apologized publicly in a press release: “I am very sorry if I shocked or made anyone feel uncomfortable. It was a bad choice of suit and I apologize for that,” he said.
In 2009, Prince Harry was once again talked about after a video from 2006 resurfaced. In the latter, we hear the son of Prince Charles address one of his classmates at the Sandhurst military school by calling him “our paki friend”. The term “paki”, which designates a Pakistani person, has a very pejorative connotation in England.
New scandal in the summer of 2012. The tabloid The Sun publishes photos of Prince Harry naked at a party. Sulphurous photos that go around the world.
In 1993, Prince Charles and his first love, Camilla Parker Bowles, made the front page of the British tabloids because of the affair of the “tampon” or also called the “Camilla gate”. The origin of the scandal comes from a naughty conversation dating from 1989 between the two lovers. While married to Lady Di, Prince Charles reportedly had a very intimate conversation with Camilla. “I want to feel all against you, on top of you, up and down, in and out. Oh my God, I would like to live hidden in your pants, it would be much easier to see you,” he allegedly told her. To which she would have replied: “What are you going to do, turn yourself into a pair of panties?”. Prince Charles would then have told him: “I could, God forgive me, turn into Tampax”.
Three years after this sulphurous conversation, Prince Charles and Lady Diana officially divorced in August 1996.
Last April, the British royal family made the headlines of the English tabloids. According to The Sun, Kate Middleton has dismissed her friend the Marchioness of Cholmondeley Rose Hanbury from Kensington Palace. According to the magazine, the Duchess of Cambridge even asked her husband Prince William to eliminate her from their lives. Since then, many rumors have begun to circulate about the possible infidelity of the latter.
According to the media, Prince William would have had an affair with Rose Hanbury while his wife was pregnant with their third child. An adultery that would not have gone unnoticed says reporter Giles Coren: “Everyone knew about this affair, honey,” he wrote on Twitter.
A rumor of infidelity which was quickly denied by Prince William’s lawyers: “The publication of false speculations about the privacy of our clients constitutes a violation of privacy within the meaning of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights,” they wrote to British newspapers.
Prince Harry was the victim of a phone prank which certainly does not make him laugh. While he thought he was talking on the phone with Greta Thunberg and her father Svante, he was tricked by two Russian youtubers, Alexei Stolyarov and Vladimir Kuznetsov, who specialize in prank calls. The latter, who had previously trapped Elton John or Bernie Sanders, decided to reveal the recordings.
In excerpts published on the Daily Mail, Prince Harry claimed that his life had been “much better” since his estrangement from the British royal family. “From the moment I found a woman who was strong enough to be able to stand up for what we believe in together, it scared them so much that they are now incredibly angry, they want to fight, and all that. what they’re doing now is trying to destroy our reputation and trying to sink us,” he allegedly claimed. Regarding his royal titles, Archie’s father explained: “No one stripped us of our titles. (…) We were just asked not to use them to make money, which we would never have done. But the press seized on the subject to make it look like we had been robbed.”
Just as he did not mince his words regarding the current political situation. “Unfortunately the world is run by very sick people so it’s the younger generation that’s going to make all the difference […] People have to wake up and the only way to wake people up is through awareness so you have to have strong gestures”, he would have explained.
