The Reason Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Have Criticized Different Members of the Royal Family in Interviews, but Not Prince Andrew
From claims of racism within the royal institution to physical fights between princes to one duchess making another cry, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have been on a public tour since they moved to the U.S., painting England’s most famous family in a bad light.
Through multiple interviews, primetime TV specials, podcasts, and a Netflix docuseries, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been airing out dirty laundry about members of Harry’s family. But what even some Sussex Squad members find odd is that they never discuss the royal who has garnered more bad press over the last few years than any other.
Prince Andrew should be like low-hanging fruit for Harry and the former Suits star to criticize or use as an example of dysfunction among some in the Firm. But they hadn’t uttered a word about him publicly until Harry’s memoir Spare, which compares the suggestion of the Sussexes’ losing their security to his “Uncle Andrew” who “was embroiled in a shameful scandal, accused of the sexual assault of a young woman.” Here’s why Harry and Meghan haven’t mentioned the Duke of York before in their interviews.
Questions about Prince Andrew are not asked in any of the Sussexes’ interviews
During their bombshell sit down with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, Harry and Meghan shot off numerous allegations about some members of the royal family. But they didn’t bring unsettling facts about Prince Andrew who was buddies with Jeffrey Epstein, accused of sexually assaulting a minor, and stripped of his royal duties following a “car crash” interview.
Andrew is one family member who if the couple decided to say something negative about, the public probably wouldn’t fault them for it as Harry’s uncle is the only royal more unpopular than the Sussexes themselves. But Andrew’s not one of Harry’s relatives who they choose trash. That has led many royal watchers to believe that the duke and duchess had been protecting Andrew and that any questions about him are off-limits whenever they do an interview.
So if that’s the case, why would they do that?
Why they haven’t brought up Harry’s disgraced uncle before
The reason why Harry and his wife don’t speak about Andrew and his transgressions is most likely because the Sussexes are very good friends with Andrew’s daughter Princess Eugenie. In fact, Eugenie was seen in the pair’s Netflix documentary riding bikes with her cousin and playing with Archie on a beach. Since Meghan and Harry stepped down in 2020, Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank, are the only family members who have visited the couple in California.
The duchess spoke briefly about their friendship with the princess during the Oprah interview, saying: “We’re friends with [Eugenie and Jack] as a couple.” Meghan later shared during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show: “The four of us snuck out in Halloween costumes to just have one fun night on the town before it was out in the world that [Harry and I] were a couple. It was a post-apocalypse theme, so we had all this very bizarre costuming on, and we were able to just have one fun final night out.”
Pictures of Harry, Meghan, Eugenie, and Jack in those costumes were featured in Harry & Meghan.
Royal author Angela Pasternak also believes the Sussexes’ reasoning for not discussing the Duke of York has to do with Eugenie, telling Fox 40 WDBD: “I supposed it could be said that [Andrew] wasn’t relevant [in interviews]. It could also be out of loyalty and respect for his daughter, Princess Eugenie, who is close to both Harry and Meghan.” Andrew actually would be relevant though to drive the Sussexes’ point about the press protecting some members of the royal family and not focusing more on negative stories about other royals.
Pasternak added: “It’s believed that [Eugenie] is probably the only member of the royal family who is close to [Meghan and Harry] and has kept in touch…one can only suspect that maybe out of respect for her, they didn’t want to go into her father.”
In February 2022, Andrew settled a lawsuit with Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexually abusing her when she was 17. The prince paid an undisclosed sum as part of that settlement but has continued to deny the allegations against him.
The Sussexes also don’t say too much about the princess’s mother, Sarah Ferguson, who did go rogue a few times herself. She could help Harry and Meghan’s case as well regarding the press because she had dealt with harsh treatment from the media in the past. However, it appears that the Duke and Duchess of York are off limits in the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s interviews and that seems to be all because of Princess Eugenie.
