Former Prince Andrew went from helicopter pilot to business ambassador to royal pariah

LONDON (AP) — He was reportedly a favorite of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, but former Prince Andrew has long been a headache for Britain’s royal family.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on Thursday, his 66th birthday, on charges of misconduct in public office in an investigation stemming from his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. He is the first senior British royal to be arrested since King Charles I, nearly 400 years ago.

Born a prince in 1960, Andrew is the third child and second son of the Queen and her husband Prince Philip. His older brother Charles was destined for the throne. Andrew took a tried-and-tested path for younger royal sons: military service.

After 22 years in the Royal Navy, including combat operations as a helicopter pilot in the 1982 Falklands War, Andrew was appointed UK Special Representative for International Trade and Investment in 2001. His frequent taxpayer-funded travels saw him dubbed “Air Miles Andy” by the press.

The current police investigation is from that period. It follows documents in the recently released Epstein files that suggest Andrew gave official government documents to the late financier when he was a business envoy. The former prince has not been charged with any crime. He has long denied any wrongdoing in his Epstein links.

Links to questionable characters

Once the subject of media fascination for his love life, dubbed “Randy Andy” the tabloids became a regular source of headlines for his money troubles and links to dubious characters, including American financier and convicted sex offender Epstein.

The then-prince’s business associations were the subject of tabloid stories stretching back to at least 2007, when he sold his home near Windsor Castle for 20% of the £15 million asking price. The buyer was reported to be Timur Kulibayev, the son-in-law of then Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, raising concerns that the deal was an attempt to buy influence in the UK.

Mountbatten-Windsor was forced to step down from the business role in 2011 amid growing concerns about her friendship with Epstein, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2008 after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution of a minor.

In 2015, US court documents included allegations that Andrew had sex with a woman three times between 1999 and 2002 in London, New York and on Epstein’s private Caribbean island, where she was a minor under US law. He denied meeting the woman, later identified as Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

After Epstein was arrested again in 2019, Andrew gave a devastating interview on the BBC’s Newsnight programme, in which he tried to explain his contacts with Epstein. It backfired – he was widely criticized for failing to empathize with Epstein’s victims by giving unreliable explanations.

Royal exile

Amid the backlash, Andrew announced on November 20, 2019 that he would be stepping down from public duties and philanthropic roles “for the foreseeable future.”

In August 2021, Gueffre sued Andrew in a New York court, alleging that Prince had sex with her when she was 17. Andrew continued to deny the charges but was stripped of all military affiliations and royal philanthropy.

Andrews eventually settled the case for an undisclosed amount. While he did not admit wrongdoing, Andrew acknowledged Giuffre’s suffering as a sex-trafficking victim. Giuffre died by suicide in April 2025, aged 41.

In 2024, a court revealed Andrew’s relationship with a businessman and suspected Chinese spy who was banned from the United Kingdom as a threat to national security. According to court documents, authorities were concerned the man might have abused his influence over Andrew.

After emails emerged showing that Andrew had been in contact with Epstein for longer than he had previously claimed and Giffrey’s posthumous memoirs brought new allegations, in October King Charles III stripped his brother of his titles of prince and Duke of York and evicted him from the Royal Lodge mansion in Windsor.

The new investigation began last month after the US Department of Justice released millions of pages of Epstein files.

Andrew is currently in police custody. Despite being stripped of his title, he remains eighth in line to the British throne. A law should be made to remove him from the succession.

He married Sarah Ferguson in 1986 and they had two daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, before divorcing a decade later. Ferguson is also facing questions about her friendship with Epstein.

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This story has been corrected to show that Andrew is the third child of Queen Elizabeth II, not the second.