PRINCE Andrew needs to be kicked out of the Royal Lodge and it’s a shame the late Queen didn’t sort out her situation before she died, a royal expert has said.
The disgraced Duke of York, 64, currently resides at the Windsor Great Park hotel in Berkshire, which has 30 rooms, a swimming pool and extensive grounds.
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Andrew has refused to vacate the property, despite reports suggesting King Charles wants him to move into Frogmore Cottage.
Speaking on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive programme, historian and biographer Hugo Vickers has now suggested that Andrew “needs to live somewhere smaller”.
During an exclusive chat with The Sun’s royal editor Matt Wilkinson, Hugo was asked what he thinks the King should do about Prince Andrew and the Royal Lodge.
Hugo replied: “Prince Andrew wasn’t convicted of anything, but he gave that ridiculous interview, he’s very unpopular and he doesn’t fulfill royal duties and won’t.
“It seems to me that at some point he will need to move somewhere more practical.
“I regret that the Queen died before solving the problem, which she could have done.
“She could have bought him a house somewhere where he would be safe and out of the way and this kind of problem wouldn’t have arisen.”
He continued: “The Royal Lodge is huge and very expensive to run and if he is not receiving the donations he was getting before, that means the King will have to support him.
“He’s not going to come back, he’s not going to do any more royal duties, so at some point he might leave the estate.
“But it would be better if he did it voluntarily, I would suggest.”
It comes after The Sun revealed King Charles wants to rent Andrew’s Royal Lodge home for £1million a year when he finally leaves.
The monarch is keen to generate commercial revenue from the manor when he expels the Duke of York, who refuses to budge, it is understood.
Hugo said there is a “precedent for this kind of thing” when asked about the Royal Lodge lease.
He said: “Some of the houses in Kensington Palace were rented to people or given to the Chief of Staff or people like that, so there is a precedent for this sort of thing.
“All Andrew does now is walk in the park and play golf. He’s 64, so he’s almost retirement age for normal people.
“So probably over time he will need to accept that and live somewhere smaller.”
Prince Andrew lost his public funding when he stepped down as a senior royal due to sexual abuse allegations and could also lose the Royal Lodge he shares with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York.
As part of the loss of its public funding, it also lost the protection of the £3 million a year taxpayer-funded Metropolitan Police, who were replaced by private security officers.
The embarrassed Duke is said to have invested £7.5 million in renovating and maintaining the Royal Lodge in the past, but sources say he cannot continue to foot the bill.
Although the house looks impressive at first glance, it is said to be “in need of major repairs”, estimated to cost around £400,000 a year.
The Sun reported last year that the house currently needs around £2 million worth of repairs.
Recent photos showed the stucco outside the mansion falling apart and mold growing on it.
Andrew has rejected other homes on offer and is relying on his “cast iron rent”, which includes the condition that the dilapidated £30m lodge in Windsor Great Park is kept in good condition.
But sources believe Charles will make the disgraced duke go away.
He could even cut the £4 million a year he pays to keep it afloat.
Royal experts say Andrew has stubbornly clung to his HRH title, which he can use in private while hobnobbing with wealthy friends like billionaire Johan Eliasch, with whom he was spotted ahead of the release of Netflix drama Scoop.
‘There is no way back for Prince Andrew,’ says PR guru
PRINCE Andrew’s reputation is irreparably damaged and he will never be able to engineer a return to public life, according to one of Britain’s leading PR gurus.
Brand and culture expert Nick Ede, who runs PR agency East of Eden, called the embarrassed royal “deluded” for thinking he could ever return to royal duties and encouraged him to give it up and ‘enjoy his life’ in exile.
It follows the release of Scoop – a Netflix film 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 might still be back. Nobody cares. He has no fans.
“There is no one out there who says ‘We want to see Prince Andrew’, not a single person. I think he has to realize that. But I think it’s going to take a long, long time for him to really understand. He is very deluded.
“In my opinion, the best thing he could do is enjoy life. He has beautiful daughters. He has a great relationship with Fergie, he has a beautiful house.
“Just live a peaceful life.”
Reflecting on the interview from five years ago – the fallout of which led to Andrew stepping back from royal duties “for the foreseeable future” – Nick compared the fallout to Frost vs Nixon and said he would have encouraged him not to do it.
He said: “If I was advising him, I would say, stay still, stay still, just get on the ground. You know you’re a prince. Enjoy the life you lead, but don’t open that can of worms, because that’s what it is.
“There was no admission that a relationship with someone like Epstein was terribly toxic. There was no idea that there were many trafficking victims whose lives were completely ruined by Epstein. He didn’t seem to think that the association he had with that man was anything other than positive.
“I think his worst faux pas was obviously being in that interview and agreeing to it in the first place, not realizing that he was actually going to be interviewed by a very, very good journalist who was going to ask him questions that he might not have liked. .
“But I think what this did really showed how archaic Prince Andrew is in his views and thoughts.
“Read the room. He never read a room.”
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