Tina Brown: Jeffrey Epstein considered Prince Andrew to be a ‘useful idiot’

Tina Brown’s The Palace Papers was excerpted by the Telegraph over the weekend. I would imagine more excerpts are coming, perhaps in People Magazine, or maybe The Daily Beast. But for now, the Telegraph has the exclusive and I genuinely wonder who chose the excerpts. One piece was about Charles and Camilla’s 2005 wedding and this one, which we’re discussing now, is about how Prince Andrew has always been sleazy, stupid and compromised. Which is why Jeffrey Epstein chose to befriend him. You can read this excerpt here (it’s paywalled) and here are some highlights:

Andrew was cut out of all of the major 2012 Jubbly events: The image of a curated Royal Family struck the right note at a time of economic austerity. But a former aide told me: “I hear there were literally people restraining members of the family trying to get on the balcony.”

Andrew’s money: He had to live on the hardly lavish £250,000 annually from the Civil List for his official activities, and a Royal Naval pension of about £20,000 a year, plus an unspecified allowance that followed the vagaries of the Queen’s goodwill. Slipping members in the line of succession are like creatures in a Middle Eastern harem, captives of luxury everyone resents, but without the wherewithal or expertise to pursue successful lives beyond. And the way the Queen doles out the money is remarkably personal. Family members wait in trepidation to learn of her decisions.

His work as a “trade ambassador”: Former minister in the Foreign Office and Labour MP Chris Bryant told me that “it was common parlance that the last thing the FO wanted was Andrew on a trip, because he’d offend half the people at the dinner table, go off on secret missions and return laden with gifts – and on top of that he was a nightmare because he insisted on more acreage in hotels than any other member of the Royal family. When he went to Davos, he had a bigger chalet than everyone else, and everyone went: ‘Why?’ ”

Andrew & Epstein: Epstein always knew the right psychic buttons to press. There was a hollowness in the Duke’s personality. That’s why he laughed louder and boasted so much. He knew that for all the palaces he lived in and the servants who Sir’d him, he was the second son whose childhood parity with Charles was a mirage. Epstein deftly exploited Andrew’s sense of grievance. The wife of a financier who sat next to Andrew at an Epstein dinner told me how the Prince suddenly declared: “I don’t know why people don’t pay us royals more respect.”





A useful idiot: Privately, Epstein told people that Andrew was an idiot, but – to him – a useful one. A senior royal, even if tainted, is always a potent magnet abroad. Epstein confided to a friend that he used to fly the Duke of York to obscure foreign markets, where governments were obliged to receive him, and Epstein went along as HRH’s investment adviser. With Andrew as frontman, Epstein could negotiate deals with these (often) shady players.

[From The Telegraph]

There’s more in the piece but the whole thing is just disgusting. Andrew apparently has long been known as a boob-ogler and he would truly visit people’s private homes and then just stay in bed for days, watching p0rn. Once he got in tight with Epstein, Andrew would never stay at hotels or the embassy in New York, he would just stay with Epstein. Brown also writes that she and Ghislaine Maxwell at times traveled in the same circles but Maxwell always left her cold. Brown also says that Epstein once came into her Daily Beast office and threatened her to “stop” reporting on his crimes. A whole mess. But yes, of course Prince Andrew is a complete f–king pig.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.