Andrew in London on Sept. 16, 2025. Credit – Aaron Chown—Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Prince Andrew, the British royal with ties to Jeffrey Epstein, has been stripped of his remaining titles and evicted from his royal residence, as Buckingham Palace faces mounting pressure to address his associations with the late sex offender.
In a statement Thursday, Buckingham Palace said that King Charles “has today initiated a formal process to remove the style, titles and honours” of his younger brother, who should now be referred to as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. The palace said the former prince will also have to move out of the Royal Lodge mansion near Windsor Castle.
The removal of Andrew’s Prince title, which he has held since birth as the son of the late Queen Elizabeth II, comes after he had already given up his Duke of York title and his other honors earlier this month. But his association with Epstein attracted renewed attention after the recent publication of a posthumous memoir by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, who alleged forced sexual encounters with Andrew when she was a teen, which the British royal has repeatedly denied.
Buckingham Palace said, “these censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him.” It added: “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”
Royal historian Kate Williams described King Charles’ action against Andrew as a “huge moment in royal history.” The last time a prince or a princess was stripped of their royal title was in 1919.
Here’s what to know.
How did Prince Andrew get here?
Several outlets cite palace sources saying that Andrew’s “serious lapses of judgement” have been a source of anxiety for a Buckingham Palace rocked by scandals in recent years.
Andrew has faced intense scrutiny over his relationship with Epstein. In a disastrous 2019 interview with the BBC, he asserted that he stopped all contact with the disgraced financier in December 2010. Days later, Andrew announced that he would step back from royal duties in what some assumed to be damage control.
In January 2025, however, Bloomberg News obtained a legal filing showing that Epstein had been in contact with Andrew at least through email until February 2011. The filing reportedly showed emails where the two discussed press reports, and Andrew wrote they should “keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon!!!!”
Earlier this month, British media further reported on that exchange, which came after a 2001 photo of him and a young Giuffre at the London townhouse of Epstein’s then-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell was first published. “I’m just as concerned for you! Don’t worry about me! It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it,” the Feb. 28 email reportedly said, which was signed off with “A, HRH The Duke of York, KG.” The email reportedly came from Andrew’s official email address.
The scandal escalated after excerpts of the memoir by Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year, alleged that she had sex with Andrew three times, with the third time in an “orgy” on an island Epstein owned in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Andrew had claimed he did not even remember meeting Giuffre in the 2019 BBC interview, and his lawyers have tried to get a civil suit she filed in 2021 dismissed. (In early 2022, an out-of-court million-dollar settlement had been reached between Andrew’s and Giuffre’s camps, without Andrew admitting liability.)
“‘I was around 18,’ I said in a sworn declaration in 2015,” Giuffre wrote in Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, which was published Oct. 21. “‘Epstein, Andy, and approximately eight other young girls and I had sex together. The other girls all appeared to be under the age of 18 and didn’t really speak English. Epstein laughed about how they couldn’t really communicate, saying they are the easiest girls to get along with.’”
She also reflected on how Andrew allegedly behaved during their sexual encounters. “In the years since, I’ve thought a lot about how he behaved. He was friendly enough, but still entitled–as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright,” Giuffre wrote.
With Andrew’s Epstein-related controversies proving an unwelcome distraction from the British royal family’s work, he gave up his Duke of York title and other honors on Oct. 17, a decision he reportedly made with consultation from King Charles.
But another issue quickly followed, this time, centered on his living arrangements. The Times of London published a report on Oct. 21 that found Andrew’s lease agreement on the Royal Lodge, a 30-room property that his family moved into in 2004 and was set to live in until 2078, only required him to pay an annual rent of “one peppercorn (if demanded)” after he had paid at least £8.5 million (more than $11 million) upfront, prompting rare questioning from the British parliament. Fanning the flame was an Oct. 27 BBC report that revealed Andrew hosted Epstein, Maxwell, and disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein at the Royal Lodge during his daughter’s 18th birthday celebration in 2006.
Earlier this week, while King Charles was visiting Lichfield Cathedral, a heckler screamed, “How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein?” and “Have you asked the police to cover up for Andrew?”
An unnamed royal source told the Telegraph that King Charles “acted swiftly” after revelations of Andrew’s ties to Epstein, but he recognized that there was a need to have a longer-term solution. The broadsheet reported that the decision to strip him of his title followed almost two weeks of negotiations before Andrew agreed to it on Thursday. The paper also reported that William, Prince of Wales, who is next in the line of succession, was “fully supportive” of how his father handled the issue over his uncle, citing an unnamed Kensington Palace source.
Impact on the royal family
Andrew henceforth no longer has the Prince title, and the order also applies to his other titles of Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, Baron Killyleagh, and the style “His Royal Highness.” The honors affected are his Order of the Garter and Knight Grand Cross of the Victorian Order.
It is very rare for princes and princesses to lose their titles. King Henry VIII removed the princess titles of his daughters—later Queens Mary I and Elizabeth I—after he annulled his marriages with their mothers. And, in 1919, under the Titles Deprivation Act of 1917, Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, a Prince of Hanover and of the U.K., had his British title removed after having sided with the Germans during World War I.
In 1936, just months after ascending to the throne, King Edward VIII abdicated to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. He kept the title Duke of Windsor but lived in exile outside Britain.
Williams, the historian, told Sky News that Andrew’s situation was unique given how “he’s lost his title as a consequence of … ‘errors of judgement.’”
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, Andrew’s daughters, will retain their titles under King George V’s Letters Patent of 1917, as children of the sons of a sovereign.
Andrew remains eighth in the line of succession to the throne, though he may be removed by an Act of Parliament and the consent of the 14 other countries that are part of the realm of the U.K. monarchy.
As for his lodging, Andrew is set to relocate to a property on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, according to the Telegraph, while his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, who continued to live at Royal Lodge with Andrew even after their 1996 divorce, will need to sort out her own living arrangements. Until this month, Ferguson had used the title Duchess of York, but said she will revert to using her name after Andrew was stripped of his Duke of York title.
Giuffre’s family’s reaction
The strongest response came from Giuffre’s family. “He’s just Andrew, he’s no longer a Prince, and she is celebrating from the heavens right now,” Sky Roberts, Giuffre’s brother, tearily told the BBC in an interview. “This normal girl from a normal family has taken down a prince. We are so proud of her.”
At the same time, Roberts said Andrew ought to face more consequences. “He needs to be behind bars—period,” Roberts said.
Roberts’ wife Amanda added that this was “truly a moment for [Giuffre] and all survivors,” but she also suggested that the U.S. government should do more. Congressional Democrats released partial records of Epstein-related files in September, which showed the late sex offender had ties with prominent figures globally, including Prince Andrew.
The Trump Administration, however, has stalled any further development on the Epstein case, as President Donald Trump’s ties to him have prompted calls for transparency from both his opponents and some allies.
“The U.S. government hold the key to the larger scope of the Jeffrey Epstein case,” Amanda said. “Prince Andrew may be just one of those people that are implicated. And I do believe if he’s willing to come forward now and cooperate, it will lead to the larger scope of what really gone on here because there’s so many people that need to be held accountable. And again, the U.K. is setting an example for what the U.S. should be doing right now.”
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