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If and when they make a live-action Shrek remake, there’s only one person they should consider for Lord Farquaad. The sadistic, callous, and extraordinarily petty villain feels tailor-made for Prince Andrew, who’s put in a lifetime of method acting to prepare himself for the role.
Recounting his many moral failings would take too much time, but it’s hard to beat him being best buds with Jeffrey Epstein. That relationship destroyed Andrew’s public image and eventually saw Queen Elizabeth II forking out a humungous settlement to Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who alleged the Prince sexually assaulted her while she was underage.
But that’s merely his highest-profile collection of sins. Bubbling under the surface are a million tiny acts of cruelty, which range from a childhood spent getting kicks from hurting the royal family’s horses and dogs, his skin-crawlingly weird teddy bear fetish, and his willingness to hoover up public money and give nothing back in return.
Now new revelations have emerged as to his treatment of his servants. We already knew that working for Prince Andrew was a nightmare, but upcoming book The Secret Life of Royal Servants by Tom Quinn lays out some specifics that will turn your stomach.
Moles, ties, and bathroom cries
Andrew is said to have a reputation as a “classic school bully” with his staff concluding he was constantly frustrated he would never be king: “A bit like his aunt Margaret, Andrew always behaved as if he was frustrated about not being the firstborn and therefore destined to become king. This frustration made him a bit of a bully in private.”
This annoyance at merely being a lowly prince included tormenting one member of his staff for having a mole on his face, eventually demanding he be removed from his service altogether. A maid confirms his disgust with facial moles, saying he apparently put a rule in place that no servant he encountered was allowed to have even the tiniest mole on their face.
He also dismissed a member of staff for the hideous crime of wearing a nylon tie in his presence, while at the same time getting his kicks from bouncing tennis balls off the walls of Buckingham Palace, destroying priceless clocks and ornaments in the process.
His weird behavior extended to his trips to the toilet. Servants report that when the call of nature struck Andrew he would scream “clear the decks!,” which was a signal for servants to “scurry out of the room and make sure no staff were loitering between the prince and the lavatory he was planning to visit.”
As one servant summarized: “He couldn’t resist being imperious and bossy and bad-tempered if anything went wrong or wasn’t done exactly to his liking.” Perhaps it’s worth remembering at this point they claim Meghan Markle was a nightmare boss. Imagine if she pulled any of these antics, we’d never hear the end of it!
In some ways, the rest of the royal family, particularly the next generation of William and Kate, will be breathing a sigh of relief that Andrew’s many controversies mean he’s firmly sidelined and effectively prevented from making official appearances. It’s worth remembering that for all the pomp and circumstance, the British royal family can only function with the consent of the people. If they were all acting like Prince Andrew, the United Kingdom would be on a one-way trip to becoming a republic. All that said, he still has staff attending to his every whim, and they have our sympathy.