Andrew Once Missed Princess Eugenie’s Birthday — and the Reason Wasn’t Surprising
A royal author revisits the duke’s absence from a family milestone.
Trigger Warning: This article contains themes of sexual abuse and child abuse that some readers may find distressing.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has long been criticised for his judgment. Still, one episode recounted by a royal biographer casts that failing in particularly personal terms, and that too at his own daughter’s birthday. While the rest of the York family marked Princess Eugenie’s milestone birthday with a celebratory trip to Disneyland, her father was notably absent. His reason, according to royal author Andrew Lownie, was dissolute. The former Duke of York allegedly chose to remain at Jeffrey Epstein’s Florida beach house rather than return home for the family celebration.
The claim appears in Lownie’s book Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, which examines Mountbatten-Windsor's personal and professional decline in the years leading up to his public disgrace. Lownie writes that Mountbatten-Windsor “stayed at Jeffrey Epstein’s beach house” during the period when Sarah Ferguson, Princess Beatrice, and Eugenie were photographed smiling in front of Disneyland’s iconic castle. The disgraced royal did not appear in any of the images released from the trip.
According to the author, the decision was deliberate. Mountbatten-Windsor, he claims, extended his stay in Florida “rather than return” for Eugenie’s birthday, for alleged debauchery. Lownie also described the growing unease within his inner circle about his continued closeness to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. “Fergie and a lot of other people who love Andrew believe that this friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein has become really dangerous,” he wrote, suggesting that concerns were being raised well before the relationship became a global scandal.
Lownie also claimed the former Duchess of York felt a “jealousy that she had lost her influence over Andrew,” as well as increasing anxiety over how his associations were affecting her own standing. He adds that she showed “growing concern about the company her ex-husband was keeping and how it was impacting her own reputation — and money-making opportunities in America.”
Mountbatten-Windsor’s decision to miss Eugenie’s birthday was hardly an isolated lapse. His long-standing associations with Epstein have, for years, proved far more damaging — repeatedly pulling the royal family into controversy and eroding what little public trust remained in the former Duke of York.
The missing birthday was not an isolated lapse. Another instance has been mentioned in the posthumous memoir by Virginia Giuffre, the woman who accused the disgraced former prince of sexual abuse, which points out how little Mountbatten-Windsor cared about his children. In Nobody’s Girl, she recounted her experiences within Epstein’s inner circle, including encounters she alleges took place when she was just 17. One such episode, described as occurring in London in March 2001, details a meeting in which Giuffre says she was introduced to him at Epstein’s residence. According to her account, Andrew — then 41 — allegedly remarked, “My daughters are just a little younger,” referring to Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who were 12 and 11 at the time.
In that light, skipping his daughter’s birthday was not the most damaging decision he made; it was just one of many that would come to define his downfall.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual abuse or exploitation, please call the National Child Abuse Hotline at 800.422.4453
