PRINCE Andrew may not be the recluse he is sometimes portrayed as these days but his landmark 65th birthday next week is expected to be a small affair.
In years gone by he might have expected a lavish party at Windsor Castle hosted by his mother Queen Elizabeth for a milestone birthday, bells tolling in celebration at Westminster Abbey, and showbusiness friends turning out in droves to add to the sense of glamour.
But his birthday celebration this year will be muted, a sign of his fall from grace.
Quite where it is happening remains a closely guarded secret so far among the diminishing number of people who remain publicly loyal to him.
“I imagine there will be a small gathering at Royal Lodge (the Duke of York’s 30-room home at Windsor),” said Andrew Lownie, the author who has spent the past few years researching a book on the King’s brother and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.
Lownie, who has been at the forefront of efforts to investigate the murky business dealings of Andrew and his friends, including an alleged Chinese spy now banned from Britain, contrasted this year’s birthday on February 19 with the Duke’s 60th.
“I don’t think the Chinese ambassador will be there this time,” he said wryly.
Nancy Dell’Olio, the Italian-American lawyer who found fame as the partner of Englandfootball manager Sven-Goran Eriksson and went on to be a contestant in Strictly and CelebrityBig Brother, met him through her friendship with his ex-wife Fergie.
The two women have worked together on charity projects and have several mutual friends.
She has found the much-maligned Duke to be delightful company.
“I wish him a happy birthday,” she said.
“He is a lovely gentleman. He is a nice person from what I have seen of him with friends.
“I have loved seeing the way he manages his relationship with his ex-wife and with his daughters and grandchildren.
“I think he is a lovely person. That’s my personal experience.”
Birthday snub
On his 60th birthday he had been due to be promoted to the honorary rank of Admiral, in line with a royal tradition that members of the family who served in the forces continue to receive increasingly senior appointments on significant birthdays as if they were still in the armed forces.
But in the event, the promotion was cancelled, along with the Queen’s party for him, forcing him to relocate a smaller gathering to Royal Lodge.
Andrew, proud of his Naval service especially in the Falklands, where he served as a helicopter pilot, put a brave face on the lack of promotion.
He announced through the palace that he had asked for it to be deferred until he had returned to frontline duties after stepping aside “temporarily” three months earlier in the aftermath of a furious public backlash to his Newsnight interview defending his friendship with the financier and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
I imagine there will be a small gathering at Royal Lodge (the Duke of York’s 30-room home at Windsor)
Andrew Lownie
Lownie, however, thinks that the Queen had an even more prestigious honour in line for her favourite son before the Epstein affair made his position as a senior working royal untenable.
He believes she wanted to admit him to the Order of Merit, perhaps the most exclusive club in the world.
“It’s just something I picked up,” the author said.
Membership of the order, which recognises distinguished service in the arts, learning, literature and science“or such other exceptional service as we are fit to recognise”, is limited to 24 members from Commonwealth nations where the British monarch is head of state plus honorary members from overseas nations including Commonwealth republics.
Admission to the order, which was created by Edward VII in 1902, is in the personal gift of the sovereign.
Andrew would have followed in a long line of luminaries such as Sir Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Hardy, TS Eliot, Graham Greene, Mother Teresa, and Nelson Mandela.
Two other members of the Royal Family had already been admitted to the order – Prince Philip in 1968 and the then Prince Charles in 2002.
Approached by Fabulous, Buckingham Palace declined to comment this week on the suggestion that the late Queen had considered Andrew for the honour too. But in any case, it was not to be.
Instead Andrew has found himself out in the cold, not even welcome to join his family at Sandringham last Christmas, and the subject of a daily drip feed of damaging stories about his financial deals and friendship with Epstein, who was found hanged in a New Yorkprison cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
The palace declined to say if the King or any other members of the extended family would be helping Andrew to celebrate his birthday.
Although there have been tensions over Charles’s refusal to continue paying his £3million private security and £1million living costs at Royal Lodge, Andrew is said to have remained on good terms with and loyal to his brother.
Friends say they have never heard him criticise the King.
Andrew’s A-list pals
And he does have loyal friends too with whom he still socialises, high society people from the word of finance, racehorse owners such as brothers Guy and Ben Sangster, as well as Formula 1 mogul Bernie Ecclestone and showbiz pals including Sir Elton John and Michael Caine.
Contrary to some reports, Andrew still manages to get into London, where he can be found socialising at Harry’s Bar, or meeting friends for lunch at Coworth Park, a luxury hotel in Ascot, near his Windsor home.
'There is no way back for Prince Andrew', claims PR guru
PRINCE Andrew’s reputation is damaged beyond repair and he will never be able to engineer a return to public life, according to one of Britain’s top PR gurus.
Brand and culture expert Nick Ede, who runs East of Eden PR agency, called the shamed royal “deluded” for thinking he could ever return to royal duties and urged him to give up and ‘enjoy his life’ in exile.
It follows the release of Scoop – a Netflix movie based on the 2019 interview he gave to Newsnight.
Nick said: “There is no way back for him.
“I think you know this perpetual idea that he could still be back. Nobody cares. He hasn’t got fans.
“There’s nobody out there who’s going ‘We want to see Prince Andrew’, not one single person. I think he has to realise that. But I think it’s going to take a long, long time for him to actually understand. It’s very deluded.
“In my opinion, the best thing that he could do is just enjoy his life. He’s got gorgeous daughters. He has a great relationship with Fergie, he has a lovely house.
“Just live a quiet life.”
Reflecting on the interview five years ago – the fallout of which saw Andrew step back from royal duties “for the foreseeable future” – Nick compared the fallout to Frost vs Nixon and said he would have urged him not to do it.
He said: “If I had been advising him, I would say, go quiet, be quiet, just go to ground. You know you’re a prince. Enjoy the life that you lead, but do not open this can of worms, because that’s what it is.
“There was no admission that a relationship with somebody like Epstein was terribly toxic. There was no idea that there were loads of victims of trafficking whose lives were completely ruined by Epstein. He didn’t seem to think that the association he had with that man was anything but positive.
“I think his worst gaffe was obviously being in that interview and agreeing to it in the first place, for not realising that he’s actually going to be interviewed by a very, very good journalist who is going to ask him questions which he might not like.
“But I think what this has done is really shown how archaic Prince Andrew is in his opinions and thoughts.
“Read the room. He’s never read a room at all.”