“The Crown” is Netflix’s scripted drama about the British royal family spanning the latter half of the 20th century. Premiering next month, Season 5 will focus on the breakdown of the marriage between Prince Charles and Princess Diana. The timing is fascinating, with the new season coming just two months into Charles’ reign as king and resulting in frenzied headlines such as this one: “The Palace is Spiraling Over a New Teaser for ‘The Crown’ and Has ‘Moved to Protect’ King Charles.”
The British economy is crashing, but yes, by all means, someone needs to protect the king of England from … a TV show. It’s a PR approach that seems to ignore that much of his marital dissolution was widely reported in the ’90s, and none of it made him (or the royal family itself) look especially honorable.
Perhaps working for the palace comms department is akin to a game of Whac-A-Mole. More recently came the rumor that palace aides “have been discussing ways to stop Prince Harry publishing his memoirs. There is said to be deep concern that the book will contain damaging revelations despite suggestions that he is seeking to tone it down.” Sounds like a good deal of hand-wringing among the so-called men in gray suits.
Meanwhile, Peacock has released the documentary “Prince Andrew: Banished,” and if the palace is looking for yet more reasons to spiral, well, happy viewing.
Little here is new, but there is something powerfully unsettling to see it all assembled in one place. It’s damning not only of Andrew, but of those who enabled him. Director Jamie Crawford has made a curious decision to rely primarily on interviews with royal watchers and reporters, who, as a group, aren’t exactly on the up-and-up themselves, having made lucrative careers by frequently passing off gossip as news, usually minus any named sources.
Still, even they have nothing nice to say about Prince Andrew.
“Andrew was treated like a little king, he was very spoiled,” says Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine. “Being second in line to the throne was very important because Prince Charles was the heir and he was the backup. And he enjoyed his mini-kingship for many years before the fact dawned on him that he was just No. 2.”
That left him needy and looking to feel important. Enter the enabler, in the form of the American financier Jeffrey Epstein, who Andrew met through Epstein’s one-time girlfriend, the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.
While awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges in 2019, Epstein was found dead in his jail cell. Maxwell was convicted last year on five counts of sex trafficking and in June she was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison “for helping the financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse underage girls.”
“Epstein had the money but no social skills. Prince Andrew had the status that opened any door. And Ghislaine was the glue,” says Helen Kirwan-Taylor, who is identified here as “editor-at-large” but no specifics are provided as to where she holds that role.
That’s a mistake. If one endeavors to pursue an exposé, why be vague about the affiliations of those interviewed on camera? Kirwan-Taylor acknowledges an early friendship with Maxwell. It’s almost a casual admission with no introspection, and director Crawford doesn’t explore in any real depth this kind of apparent co-mingling of royal reporters and newsmakers.
This isn’t to say Kirwan-Taylor’s observations lack merit, but that the documentary itself is too quick to wave away legitimate questions about the experts on which it relies.
Annette Witheridge was a freelance journalist living in New York when she got the tip in 2011 that Prince Andrew was in town. It was the photographer teamed with her who got those now infamous photos of Andrew and Epstein walking together in Central Park. While staking out Epstein’s Manhattan mansion, Witheridge says she remembers thinking: “Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to sex offenses. He was a horrific abuser of very young girls. And the second son of the queen is staying with him and has gone out openly with him. Why would he be seen with Jeffrey Epstein? What is Andrew doing?”
It’s a succinct point and it’s curious that it wasn’t concerning enough to force the royal family to take some kind of definitive public action with regards to Andrew.
What else stands out in this retelling? Of note is an interview with Paul Page, a former royal protection officer who describes some of the inner workings at Buckingham Palace. Maxwell was a frequent visitor and “the routine was we’d just wave her through, no ID, no nothing. Straight into the quad to Prince Andrew’s apartments. So she would come in and out as often as she wanted. And she was in and out all the time.” No one else had that kind of access besides the royal family itself, he says.
In 2009, Page was convicted of a GBP3 million property investment scam and served jail time. This too isn’t mentioned in the documentary. It doesn’t mean his observations about Andrew aren’t true, but it underscores the idea that perhaps nobody here has clean hands.
As the queen’s second son, Andrew was always near her wealth, but had no wealth of his own. Kirwan-Taylor says that once Andrew married Sarah Ferguson, the couple hatched a plan: “Prince Andrew and Fergie were sort of early adopters of leveraging titles for all sorts of deals … I think the two of them sat down and said: We should monetize ourselves.” They divorced in 1996.
We see a clip from an old interview at one of the palaces where Andrew is asked about his extravagant lifestyle. “What is an extravagant lifestyle?” he says incredulously, sitting next to a fireplace with a gilded mantelpiece.
Simon Wilson, former British deputy ambassador to Bahrain, provides one of the more unflinching interviews here. His disgust is palpable in describing a visit that included Andrew and his extensive entourage. Andrew insisted on staying at a five-star hotel “because the Duke of York nearly always refuses to stay at an ambassador’s residence even though it’s free, it’s paid for by the government. He always likes to stay in the best hotel.” The whole thing was an embarrassment, he says, with Andrew “going off and doing these side deals with iffy people who weren’t on the agenda.”
Tina Brown, one-time editor of The New Yorker and author of “The Diana Chronicles” and “The Palace Papers,” is also interviewed here. She recalls going to see Prince Andrew when he was living in Buckingham Palace “and I was sort of struck by what a dingy scene it was. It was as if he was living in a second-rate hotel.”
Maybe. But that’s only half the story which, again, goes unmentioned here. Since 2004, he has lived at the sprawling Royal Lodge in Windsor (along with his ex-wife) for which he was given a 75-year lease. That’s not even counting the dubious purchase of a luxury ski chalet in the Swiss Alps, which he was ultimately unable to pay off.
According to recent reporting in the British outlet the Express, “As part of his new role as King, it is thought” — this is typical of royal reporting; “it is thought” is a very slippery way of phrasing an assertion that has zero named sources backing it up — that “Charles will look into the Crown’s vast property portfolio, which covers more than 500,000 acres of land across Britain, and make some changes. This could lead to Andrew being kicked out of Royal Lodge, a mansion he has shared with Sarah for years.” And apparently “he could be handed up to GBP7 million compensation if he is asked to move out” according to the British newspaper The Sun.
If that happens — a big “if” — then the documentary’s use of “banished” in its title might actually have the tiniest ring of accuracy.
But not carrying out public duties doesn’t equal “banished,” even though it is the primary change to Andrew’s day-to-day existence, aside from the multimillion-dollar settlement paid to Virginia Giuffre, who alleged Epstein trafficked her and forced her to have sex with his friends, including Andrew.
Circumstances always play a role in shaping a person’s life. The documentary attempts to sketch out what that means for someone like Andrew, who was raised in a hothouse of dysfunction. “It’s acquired situational narcissism,” says Kirwan-Taylor, “and it means you may not have been born a flaming narcissist, but you become one. And I think that’s what happened to Prince Andrew.” How would she know?
Whatever the forces shaping us, we’re all answerable for the choices we make as individuals. More money, more problems, as the saying goes — but it also means less sympathy for delicate egos. Powerful people and those in their protection rarely have to answer for their destructive or alleged criminal behaviors. What does that mean when talking about the royal family?
Over the years, members of the royal family have intimated or said outright that they feel trapped by their circumstances. It might be difficult to leave. Very difficult, even. It means reconceiving one’s identity and disentangling it from the pomp and the titles. But it can be done.
The documentary ends with many of the interview subjects predicting Maxwell will talk and reveal names and details. This, too, undercuts their surety. They’re speculating — but based on what?
So far, there have been no disclosures from Maxwell.
“Prince Andrew: Banished” — 2 stars (out of 4)
Where to watch: Peacock
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic
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