‘He’s a couch potato’: How Andrew spends his days
The former prince’s spectacular fall from grace has driven him into hiding, leaving him feeling ‘abandoned and embittered’
The Royal family this week gathered en masse for a Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, as is their custom. From the 90-year-old Duke of Kent to seven-year-old Prince Louis, all branches of the extended family were present.
With one exception. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was elsewhere, out riding in the rain, accompanied only by a groom. Fifty minutes away in Windsor, he cut an unmistakably glum figure.
As a snapshot of the Royal family at the end of 2025, it was unimprovable – and yet odd. Having become adept at evading photographs with the help of his staff, Andrew was suddenly snapped out riding twice in three days – the most he has been seen in semi-public in months. Days earlier, he had attended the christening of his granddaughter, Athena Mapelli Mozzi, travelling to St James’s Palace sequestered in the back of a car. He did not, however, join Princess Beatrice, her husband, and their friends at the pub afterwards.
Andrew was spotted riding his horse near Windsor Castle Credit: Kelvin Bruce
As his fall from grace seems near completion, Andrew has made an effort to stay out of the public eye, sources say. Nevertheless, he is not entirely happy. Stripped of his last remaining honorary military title of vice-admiral, and having already lost his titles of Prince and Duke as well as his home, he has hidden himself away in Windsor.
If 2025 was the year his life finally came crashing down, 2026 is set to bring further indignity, as he finally moves out of Royal Lodge and into Marsh Farm on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk. Hopes – entertained until surprisingly recently – of a comeback to some form of public life are either indefinitely on ice or dead in the water, depending on the optimism of his allies on any given day.
Andrew now spends his days riding, shooting, playing golf or watching television. He does not drink or smoke and is never seen out to dinner. His days of frequenting London clubs are long behind him, and no one mentions Pizza Express. “He does watch a lot of TV – he’s always done that,” says one source, not unsympathetically. “He’s always been a bit of a couch potato.”
Princesses Beatrice (left) and Eugenie arriving for Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace on December 16 without their father Credit: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty
The former prince still hosts shoots in Sandringham, it is said, but “nobody visits him anymore”. He feels “abandoned and embittered”, according to his biographer, who is critical of the former prince. “But at the moment, he’s coming to terms with the fact he’s lost everything that mattered to him: his status, his position in the Royal family and military, and to a lesser extent, a fractured family.”
As the fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal has persisted, many months of Andrew’s year have been taken up with meetings with lawyers, courtiers and the few advisers who remain loyal to him. And as the frenzied firefighting of the autumn gives way to figuring out logistics, things have quietened down somewhat. He will be moving house – largely against his will – next year and, more immediately, he will be awaiting the next drop of Epstein documents.
Some describe Andrew as still “bullish”, even “chipper”. Others, who have dealt with him recently, warn of a “duty of care” to a man who has not been historically fragile but is under immense pressure. He has been “very, very flat” as the “penny has finally dropped”, says one source, but in general lives his emotional life on an “even keel”.
One of the few titles Andrew maintains is that of grandfather to the pre-school aged children of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie: Sienna and Athena Mapelli Mozzi, and August and Ernest Brooksbank. It is a “joy to see him really shine as a grandfather”, said his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, in 2021, although she too has gone quiet for now.
“What’s he going to do with the rest of his life?” asks one long-term royal watcher. “It’s a very interesting question, and I don’t think anyone has the answers yet.”
The only way is down
First, a recap. At the start of 2025, the then-Prince Andrew was already far from riding high. He had stepped back from public duty long ago in 2019, following his infamous Newsnight interview, while his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was still alive.
The “siege of Royal Lodge” was well underway, too, with the King and his aides wanting Andrew out, while he stubbornly cited the terms of his “iron-clad” Crown Estate lease. Details of his involvement with Epstein were grim but at least all out in the open, it was thought, and he had settled a civil lawsuit out of court, paying his own accuser an estimated £12m while continuing to deny any wrongdoing.
Andrew’s remaining allies were convinced there was a way back. Some mentioned “Profumo” – shorthand for a disgraced member of the establishment rehabilitating his reputation through quiet and extensive positive work. The prince could keep his head down and do some charity work was the belief – “Though that would require some degree of self-awareness” said one on-board source drily at the time). There was also still the hope that the “Epstein stuff” would somehow blow over, or even improve.
Those loyal to Andrew insisted that he was no more than a high-profile “scalp” for campaigners and US prosecutors. “They’re only going after him because he’s a prince,” became one line of defence from those who argued there were many other, more powerful, men who knew more but were not under the same microscope.
Friends insisted that the famous photograph with Virginia Giuffre must be fake, and they hoped that the testimony of Epstein’s victims may yet be disproved. Then came the Chinese spy allegations, when a “close confidant” and business associate of Andrew turned out to be an agent kicked out of Britain after undertaking – surprise, surprise – “covert and deceptive activity” on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.
Andrew’s ex wife, Sarah Ferguson, has been rumoured to be considering lucrative offers for a tell-all interview Credit: Mark Cuthbert/Getty
The then-Duke of York duly skipped last Christmas at Sandringham. And there was still farther to fall.
April 2025 brought the tragic death of Giuffre, and with it the end of any ill-advised hopes that she would eventually be discredited. In August, as The Telegraph outlined how the Government and the Palace could, if they chose, strip the King’s brother of his titles, it was still considered too complicated to take action. Around the same time came Andrew Lownie’s biography, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, which brought decades of the couple’s scandals back into the public consciousness via the front pages.
A newspaper published resurfaced emails showing that the then-Duke had been in contact with Epstein five years longer than he had claimed. Another email showed the then-Duchess describing the convicted sex offender as her “supreme friend”. A series of charity patronages dropped Fergie like a hot potato. Meanwhile Giuffre’s heartbreaking memoir was published posthumously.
Emails between Andrew (the then-Duke of York), Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein dated April 2011 Credit: US Congress Oversight Committee/PA
In October, Buckingham Palace released a statement from Andrew. “I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first,” he said. Long story short, he would no longer call himself the “Duke of York”.
Then came the final nail in the court-of-public-appeal coffin: paperwork that showed Andrew had only paid peppercorn rent on his 30-room mansion for more than 20 years. Calls for an inquiry grew, the Public Accounts Committee swivelled its eyes to the Crown Estate, and protracted negotiations over Royal Lodge commenced in earnest.
The King was heckled on a public engagement, to the delight of the Republicans who disseminated the footage, and the creeping disquiet of courtiers. On October 30, the King officially lost patience. “His Majesty has today initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew,” said Buckingham Palace “Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.” (The hyphen came later.) Formal notice was given for him to leave Royal Lodge, lease or no lease. “These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he [Andrew] continues to deny the allegations against him,” said a spokesman for the King.
It was all a long way from the steps of Westminster Cathedral, in mid-September, when Andrew and his ex-wife were seen mingling and laughing at the funeral of the Duchess of Kent, apparently believing the worst was behind them.
‘Amazingly resilient’
In most practical senses, Andrew’s life has changed little – he already spent most of his time at home. Ask those who know him about his hobbies, and they will say the same words on repeat, unchanging through the years. There’s golf; shooting; riding; hours of television; school-dinner-style puddings; the military; and the newer and admittedly niche “watching videos of aeroplanes landing”.
It is almost impossible, now, to find anyone who will speak up for him on record. One friend who is in regular contact with him offers that he is actually “in pretty good nick” and “amazingly resilient, bearing in mind what he’s had to put up with”.
Having agreed to leave Royal Lodge, Andrew is faced with packing up a lifetime of belongings to move out – not least his infamous collection of 72 teddies, which reportedly had to be lined up by a servant in size order every morning. The Royal Collection paintings hanging on the walls will be retrieved by their custodians at some point, to be kept elsewhere for the nation.
The unglamorous Marsh Farm, while not quite the “shoebox” it has been described as elsewhere, is smaller than the Lodge and in need of work before Andrew can move in. A former working farm seven miles from Sandringham itself, the plain, brick-built main house has two reception rooms and a kitchen, as well as several other outbuildings. Situated near at least one business and a small village, it requires a significant security overhaul, which will take time. Andrew is scheduled to move in in early 2026, but some predict this will be kicked into the long grass for months. “He doesn’t want to leave Royal Lodge,” one source says. “He’s prevaricating with his head in the sand, hoping it will all go away, stringing it out.”
Marsh Farm in Wolferton, Norfolk, on the Sandringham Estate Credit: Bav Media
The move may even be a temporary stepping stone. He may yet end up overseas, most likely the Middle East, though that comes with its own myriad problems. The nickname “Sandy Andy”, suggesting a future in the desert climate of Bahrain, has been mentioned, but it has not yet caught on.
Ferguson, who had hoped to find her own property within the Crown Estate, will be making her own way in the world. “She’s in a very bad way, but she’ll dust herself down and attempt to reinvent herself again somehow,” predicts one source. There have been suggestions of a television interview or a new book.
Within palace walls, where there are few positive sentiments reserved for the former prince, aides still give him credit for a degree of discretion even amid what they have termed his “serious lapses of judgment”. Andrew has not yet, they concede, sold out his late mother or his brother, nor complained via the media about the undoubted privileges of royal life.
Still, there are dangers ahead.
‘They are still protecting him’
Lownie argues that the former prince’s years as a British trade envoy warrant full Parliamentary investigation and the release of paperwork. The Yorks’ finances, he has always warned, are far more potentially scandalous than the “sideshow” of the Royal Lodge. “I think the Royal family is sort of thinking they’ve dealt with the problem when they haven’t,” he said. “They’re still protecting him.” Of how Andrew has approached his defenestration, he says: “He feels hard done by, that everyone has picked on him, and he can’t see that he’s made some pretty unwise choices.”
Another source describes how “up until the last three months, or certainly this year, he was thinking he would make a comeback”, particularly via charity work. “The problem is,” they add, “no one will have him – he’s toxic.”
There are many more questions regarding Epstein to come in the US. A parliamentary committee could technically invite Andrew to answer questions about royal living arrangements. No one can explain what will happen to the late Queen’s beloved corgis, entrusted to the Yorks after her death, when they move into separate houses.
Not too long ago, Andrew proudly wore the royal cypher of the Grenadier Guards – of which he was once colonel – on his jumper while riding. This week it was firmly out of sight, a sodden raincoat in its place, as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor rode through the bleak December weather with gritted teeth, staring straight ahead.
