Buckingham Palace is being plunged into a new pre-Christmas nightmare as newly-released Epstein files made public by the Trump Department of Justice on Friday night include photographs that are deeply damaging to former Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.
One image in particular looks destined to become part of the enduring visual record of Andrew’s disgrace. It shows him in black tie, sprawled across the laps of five people—apparently women—whose faces have been blacked out. Another unidentified woman leans over them; the only face other than Andrew’s left unobscured is that of Ghislaine Maxwell, later convicted for her role in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.
The composition neatly encapsulates the sense of entitlement, impunity and moral vacancy that has come to define Andrew’s public legacy.
A second photograph released on Friday appears to show Sarah Ferguson in New York City, posing with a young woman whose identity has been obscured.
The U.S. Department of Justice has said it is, among other reasons, censoring images and documents to protect victims. The fact that the faces of those seen with Andrew and Ferguson are blacked out, therefore, raises the deeply uncomfortable possibility that they were being photographed alongside victims of Epstein’s trafficking network—in which Andrew has long been alleged to have participated.
Andrew has always denied having sexual contact with Epstein’s most famous victim, Virginia Giuffre, but paid her a multimillion-dollar settlement after she accused him of rape. The settlement explicitly included no admission of guilt, yet it marked the effective end of his public life.
Andrew and Ferguson no longer list an official spokesperson; both a lawyer and a media professional previously associated with them have been contacted for comment.
At the time at least one of the photographs appears to have been taken, Andrew was serving as the U.K.’s official trade envoy—a role conferred on him by the British government. The Royalist has also approached Buckingham Palace for comment.
Andrew’s fall from grace spiraled after it emerged that he had misled the palace about the extent and duration of his association with Epstein, and had lied in a catastrophic and defiant 2019 Newsnight interview on the subject.
He was subsequently stripped of his military titles and royal patronages. He is no longer permitted to use the style “His Royal Highness,” or “Prince,” meaning he should properly be referred to simply as Mr Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
In a statement in October, King Charles acknowledged that Andrew has denied wrongdoing but made clear that his sympathies lay “with all victims of sexual abuse,” and added that Andrew’s withdrawal from public duties was permanent. Andrew is also being forced to leave his palatial home, Royal Lodge, underlining the extent to which he had become a liability the monarchy could no longer carry.
Still, the fear that Andrew’s Epstein ties might produce further revelations has long been highlighted by his biographer Andrew Lownie, whose book Entitled did much to dismantle the carefully-managed machine protecting him.
That these photographs have emerged just days after the U.K.’s Metropolitan Police announced they would undertake no further inquiries into allegations against Andrew only deepens the sense of institutional failure and corruption.
For many observers, that decision reinforced the widespread belief that there has been a concerted effort to paper over the scandal without ever properly confronting it, much less making Andrew accountable for his actions.
For the Royal Family, these pictures are an unqualified nightmare—one that underscores how the Epstein scandal continues to metastasize, refusing to stay buried no matter how much the Palace might wish it otherwise.
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