Britain's Prince Andrew Taken Down by Epstein and Chinese Spy Scandals
The two scandals, which Reason helped link, proved too much for the British royal family.
It's not every day that a royal becomes a commoner. But Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday that Andrew, formerly known as Prince Andrew, would now be an ordinary citizen known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. He will also lose his taxpayer-funded digs at the Royal Lodge and move to a private home. The palace's press release added that Windsor "continues to deny the allegations against him."
The allegations in question have to do with Windsor's ties to two different foreigners: American pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019, and Chinese businessman Yang Tengbo, whom the British government accuses of espionage. After Windsor was accused of participating in Epstein's sexual abuses and gave an interview that made things look even worse for him, the prince reportedly turned toward Yang for a potential fresh start in China.
However, the British government banned Yang from Britain in 2023 on the grounds that he committed "covert and deceptive activity" on behalf of the Chinese government. Yang, who denies those allegations, sued the British government and lost in 2024, leading to a series of revelations about Windsor's Chinese outreach.
Reporting by Reason revealed that Windsor had been in contact with Epstein much later than he admitted, and that he had been trying to work with Beijing on sensitive matters earlier than believed. In leaked emails, Epstein told one of his business partners that Windsor had told him about an idea to start a "personel [sic] protection co in beijing" in 2015.
Those emails made it to the front page of the Sunday Times, the British newspaper of record, which noted that Windsor had claimed to cut off contact with Epstein in 2010. The Times independently verified many details from the emails. Another newspaper, The Express, called the story the "nail in the coffin" for Windsor's attempts to stay in the palace.
Yet that wouldn't be the last compromising story to come out about the former prince. The Telegraph revealed that Windsor had met three times in 2018 and 2019 with Cai Qi, a Chinese official accused of running a spy ring in Britain. Two different newspapers obtained an email from Windsor to Epstein in 2011 stating that "we are in this together" and "we'll play some more soon!!!!"
The BBC reported that Windsor had hosted Epstein at a party in the Royal Lodge in 2006, two months after Florida authorities issued a warrant for Epstein's arrest. Windsor's other guests included Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and Harvey Weinstein, an American movie producer convicted of sexual assault in a separate scandal that kicked off the #MeToo movement.
The woman who accused Windsor of sex abuse, Virginia Giuffre, died in April 2025. But her memoir, which includes many graphic details about her encounter with Windsor, was published posthumously this month.
The series of leaks and revelations turned into a major headache for King Charles III. Two weeks ago, Windsor announced that Andrew was giving up some of his titles after a "discussion with the king," although he would remain Prince Andrew. On Monday, a heckler confronted King Charles about the royal family's "cover up." A few days later, the king began a "formal process" to remove the prince.
"This normal girl from a normal family has taken down a prince. We are so proud of her," Giuffre's brother, Sky Roberts, told the BBC. "The U.S. government hold the key to the larger scope of the Jeffrey Epstein case. The U.K. is setting an example for what the US should be doing right now," he added.
