Battling criticism over his association with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Britain’s Prince Andrew said Wednesday that he is stepping away from his public duties “for the foreseeable future.”
The announcement comes amid public scrutiny that has been building for months around the prince’s ties to Epstein, who killed himself in a jail cell this summer.
For years, Andrew has denied an allegation that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl on multiple occasions in the early 2000s. That accusation drew fresh attention in August, when a federal appeals court released a trove of documents from a lawsuit filed by the accuser, Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
The announcement also comes days after the BBC broadcast an hourlong interview with Andrew for which he has been roundly panned over a perceived lack of sympathy for Epstein’s victims.
On Wednesday, Andrew, who holds the title Duke of York and is the third child of Queen Elizabeth II, said the growing scrutiny has been a “major disruption” to the royal family and to the charities associated with him. – READ MORE