Oafish, sex-obsessed, sleazy, vulgar, ignorant, entitled, breathtakingly rude... and that's just for starters. This is how the Mail summarised Prince Andrew as it began its serialisation of Andrew Lownie's biography of the Yorks yesterday.

I am happy to report that I have never met this deeply unpleasant princeling but I have known his ex-wife Fergie since the early 90s having interviewed her several times for the Express and serving as a trustee on her now defunct charity, Children in Crisis. So four years ago when Lownie, my friend and literary agent, told me that Prince Andrew was to be his latest project, I suggested he might like to meet Sarah. He agreed because, in the interests of fairness, he was keen to write a balanced book. 

The meeting was arranged for the afternoon of February 15, 2022 at the Lownie home in Westminster. A young aide arrived first, deputed to hold the former royal's hand, and then in burst Her Duchiness, carrying signed copies of her latest daft romantic tome and some scented candles to which she had put her name. Lots of gushy mwah mwahs and the conversation began.

To precis it: Yes she would love to help; Prince Andrew is such a good man; people just don't understand how much he has done for his country; the whole issue of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein is terrible, he's so distraught and spends all day lying on a rug playing with the dogs, watching daytime telly or tracking flights on a plane app. She would tell him that Lownie was not out to do a hatchet job and they would encourage their friends to help with the biography.

An hour later Fergie left in the chauffeured Range Rover which had delivered her and off she went to Harley Street for a dental appointment. By the end of that afternoon there had been two developments: the Palace announced that the prince, though admitting no guilt about sex with underage girls, had agreed a whopping settlement with Virginia Giuffre ... and Fergie, despite what she had said, had made it clear to all their friends that they were to stay clear of Lownie. Do not collaborate with this man!

I had a further meeting with Sarah's PR together with the lovely Kate Waddington, her long-suffering right-hand lady who went years being owed money by her boss, but there was to be no change of mind. And that is why Entitled: The Fall of the House of York, published on August 14, became a biography of both of them and from what I know Fergie comes out even worse than her ex.

Andrew Lownie does nothing by halves; he is a serious historian whose previous books on Guy Burgess, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the Mountbattens took years of forensic research. His approach to the Yorks has been no exception.

I know some of the people he interviewed about Fergie including those who worked for Children in Crisis, and most of them fell out with her because of the bullying, the lack of direction and the unreasonable requests. And while I believe she may have cared about the kids the charity helped, the overwhelming impression was that it was really all about Fergie. 

She has no concept of money which is why she is constantly flirting with bankruptcy. And yet she spends vast sums she doesn't have on flowers and gifts for people she thinks might be impressed. Neither she nor Andrew have any old-fashioned common sense and, as we say in Ireland, there's a pair of them in it.

To sum up Day One of the Mail's serialisation: Andrew is obsessed with sex, especially of the anal variety, but is a wham bam specialist; he is a pompous loner loathed by most of the Royal Family, particularly by Prince William (and by Harry who came to blows with his uncle), and is as thick-skinned as a cheap sausage. We have yet to read how he abused his position of trade emissary but it won't be pretty.

As for Sarah, her lack of self-awareness will be revealed in Technicolor; the sex, the money, the deceit, the awful sense of smutty humour, the lack of judgment and the plain stupidity, are yet to come. And possibly the little extra she offered the Fake Sheikh.

Oh to be a fly on the wall at Royal Lodge this coming week.

3 August 2025