Boris Johnson has opened up on his last conversation with disgraced Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor when he had to ban him from attending a major event in fear of embarrassing the late Queen Elizabeth. The former Duke of York has not been banished in exile in Norfolk, but is staying in a temporary home before his move to Marsh Farm, within the King’s Sandringham estate.
Andrew’s fall from grace came after the bombshell revelations about his association with Jeffrey Epstein in the latest tranche of files released by the US Department of Justice. Last week, Andrew was further humiliated after being arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office and released 11 hours later under investigation. But his downward spiral began unravelling in 2019, following his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview about Epstein, shortly before he announced he would be stepping down as a senior working member of the Royal Family.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke about the last meeting with the former Duke, which took place while he was in office, and he had to “ban him” from attending a big ceremony due to the furore that sparked after his BBC interview.
Mr Johnson wrote in the Daily Mail: “The second long – and indeed the last conversation I had with Andrew – took place when I was PM, and I was for some reason deputed to tell him that he could not attend some big public ceremony, for fear of embarrassing his mother and the whole institution of the monarchy.
“This time I had to go to Windsor to break the bad news. He was not thrilled. I tried to cheer him up.
“Look, I said, he needed to be a bit humble. He had to understand how people felt about things, ever since that disastrous interview on Newsnight.
“He needed to build back his reputation.”
Ms Johnson’s hope steered far from reality as Andrew’s reputation has only gotten worse after embarrassing pictures of him kneeling over a woman on all fours emerged from the latest document drop.
Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing and he has not commented on the latest Epstein files.
