The Daily Mirror’s royal editor Russell Myers has written a royal book, this one called William & Catherine: The Intimate Inside Story. There’s been some buzz about this book for the past month or so, like people thought Myers would actually reveal something major about the Prince and Princess of Wales. Judging from the first excerpt, which was published in the Mirror on Friday, this isn’t going to dish about what’s *really* going on in Camp Keen. It’s more like…80% William and Kate’s narratives, with 20% pushback from King Charles’s courtiers. The first excerpt is all about how William has boldly argued for years that Prince Andrew should have been kicked out of the royal family, basically since the Newsnight debacle in November 2019. Some highlights from the book excerpt:
After Andrew’s 2019 Newsnight interview: In the aftermath, William spoke to his father to implore him and the Queen to take immediate action, fearing not only the public backlash but for his own future. A source said: “Once you understand the fact that everything that happens in the here and now, affects everything in the future, William’s future, it is very easy to put yourself in his shoes. He never much liked his uncle and wanted him out of the picture immediately before the rot further set in. William’s view was that he [Andrew] got himself into the whole mess, so he should be left to his own devices to sort it out away from the family.”
When Andrew & Sarah Ferguson were invited to Christmas at Sandringham in 2023: In a clear sign of his wish for further harmony in his family, Charles invited his former sister-in-law, Sarah, Duchess of York, to join the royal family and walk alongside her ex-husband Prince Andrew to church at Sandringham. It would be the first time she had participated in this tradition in 32 years. The King’s decision to bring his brother back into the family fold was an issue William fundamentally disagreed with, to such a degree that he challenged Charles directly. A source with knowledge of the conversation said that William was “very much put in his place”, and that while he did not agree with the view that Andrew’s exile should be limited, he did not provoke his father further.
William always hated Andrew: William’s negative view of his uncle Andrew had predated the Duke of York’s fall from grace. For years the Prince of Wales had questioned what benefit his uncle was to the wider operation. “Long before he was embroiled in the scandal [involving Virginia Giuffre], he’d always thought his uncle was a bit of an ignoramus”, a palace source revealed. “He would question ‘what does he actually do?’ But it was more than that. He’d seen how Andrew behaved in front of staff, ordering people about, the aggressive or dismissive manner, they’d never seen eye to eye. William has a relationship with his cousins [Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie] … so he takes no umbrage with them, but there’s no love lost for Andrew or Sarah.”
William was always overruled by Charles: “In an alternate dimension Andrew probably thought there would be a way back into public life if the scandal or the headlines died down, but it would have always had to be while his brother was King. William didn’t think either of them [Andrew or Sarah] should be anywhere near the family, publicly or otherwise, but he was overruled by his father.”
A stain on the family: [In 2024], William again implored the King to act: to strip Andrew of his titles and banish him from the family for good in order to protect the reputation of the institution. While Andrew had always vehemently denied the allegations, both publicly and privately to his family, one palace source close to William said: “The Prince of Wales was adamant the whole episode would never go away and, despite how others may have felt, there was absolutely no upside in Andrew being protected. His view was crystal clear, Andrew shouldn’t be anywhere near the family under any circumstances, not by association, not at family functions, anywhere. Every single time there was a new revelation, which no one knew when it was coming or what the next one would be, it was a stain on all of the family.”
Will & Kate were united in hating Andrew: William and Catherine’s personal view has been that their best option is to keep their distance from the source of the problem. They knew that the disturbing claims of sexual abuse that have pursued Andrew for more than a decade, allegations he has always vehemently denied, had permanently damaged him in the public’s eyes. And his now famous BBC Newsnight interview, where he failed to apologise for his connection to Epstein, or acknowledge the victims of sexual abuse, was, for William and Catherine, terminal for their relationship with him.
The only thing in here which slightly surprised me was the part about William being “very much put in his place” regarding Andrew and Sarah being invited to Christmas at Sandringham. That was also the excuse William’s people used when William and Kate chauffeured Andrew to church at Balmoral in 2023 – that William had been “ordered” to do so by his father, and that Charles put William in his place as heir or something. I mean, multiple things can be true here – Charles led the charge for Andrew and Sarah to be brought in from the “cold” in 2023-24, despite many warnings. I also believe that William has probably argued for some time that Andrew should be banished, although I doubt that started after the Newsnight interview – at that time (circa 2019-2020), William was much more focused on banishing HIS brother. In fact, the Windsors were widely in favor of using Prince Harry and Meghan as distractions from Andrew’s depravity and lies. You can’t tell the story of “how the royals have covered up Andrew’s long-standing degeneracy” without telling the story of how Harry and Meghan were treated from 2018-2020.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images. Book cover courtesy of Amazon.
