Britain's King Charles III has evicted Prince Andrew from Buckingham Palace following a series of scandals over his alleged ties with convicted American pedophile Jeffery Epstein, The Sun claimed on Friday.
The Duke of York, 62, will now be barred from having an office in the royal residence in London and from using it as an address for correspondence, the British tabloid reported.
“Any presence at the Palace is officially over,” a source told The Sun. “The King has made it clear. He isn’t a working royal. He’s on his own.”
The report also suggests that staff, already reduced to a bare minimum after Prince Andrew left public life three years ago, would apparently soon lose their jobs. At the same time, the scandal-ridden royal will reportedly retain The Royal Lodge house on the Windsor estate to London’s west.
Prince Andrew, the middle son of the late Queen Elizabeth II, announced that he would step back from public life in 2019, following allegations of close ties with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested in July of the same year on charges of sex-trafficking minors and was found dead in his jail cell a month later.
While his death was ruled a suicide, the suspicious circumstances surrounding his departure as well as claims that he might have had compromising information about powerful figures, prompted public skepticism about the official version of events.
In January, Buckingham Palace stripped Prince Andrew of his military affiliations and Royal patronages as he fought allegations of having sexually abused Virginia Roberts, one of Epstein’s alleged victims, when she was 17.
He managed to settle this lawsuit. Though the sum involved was supposedly confidential, British media reported it to be as much as £12 million ($14 million). The Duke has consistently denied any wrongdoing, but agreed to “make a substantial donation” to a charity “in support of victims’ rights.”