Prince Andrew has been kicked out of his offices at Buckingham Palace amid fallout from a BBC interview he did regarding his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
The prince, who acknowledged that he will be stepping away from his duties earlier this week, has been told to clear his staff out of the palace and that he will need to find a new space for his office, the Times of London reported on Friday. The move also comes after news broke that Andrew’s private secretary, Amanda Thirsk, who was a major supporter of the interview, will no longer remain in the position.
Andrew referenced the heat he was receiving for both the interview and his association with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in his jail cell in August, when he announced he would no longer actively perform his royal duties.
“It has become clear to me over the last few days that the circumstances relating to my former association with Jeffrey Epstein has become a major disruption to my family’s work,” a Wednesday statement from the royal read. “Therefore, I have asked Her Majesty if I may step back from public duties for the foreseeable future, and she has given her permission.”
The interview with Emily Maitlis, which many consider to have been a mistake, aired last weekend, and Andrew struggled to dispel allegations that he raped then-17-year-old Virginia Roberts after Epstein allegedly set them up in 2001. Roberts, now Giuffre, has accused Epstein of sexual assault, trafficking, and several other felony offenses that took place in the early 2000s and has accused the prince of raping her on three different occasions.
Andrew insisted that on one of the dates of the alleged assaults, he was at a pizza restaurant with his daughters. He also said her claim that they met at a nightclub where he was sweating profusely could not be true because he had a post-combat condition that prevented him from sweating. He additionally denied that he and Giuffre ever had a sexual relationship.
