Prince Harry Claims Sabotage

0:01Prince Harry caused sabotage on the palace, Prince Andrew's Epstein massage bill is revealed and the royal popularity crisis may be at a tipping point. I'm Jack Royston, Newsweek's Chief Royal Correspondent, and this is Newsweek's Royal Report. Hello listeners and welcome to the show. Now Prince Harry's relationship with King Charles is under strain again, and that's because of a whole flurry of briefings about their private tea and other issues, which have tipped a Sussex spokesperson into issuing a public statement, declaring that not just that some stories in the papers were wrong, but specifically that they suspect sabotage from somebody unnamed, presumably in the palace.

0:44Lots of headlines have appeared talking about men in grey suits and so on. Now, this all prompted a royal insider to then brief there was sadness at the reaction, given that private efforts had been taking place behind closed doors to help fix the relationship. So all in all, it felt like a very kind of familiar pattern where some progress is made, sparking hopes for reconciliation that then creates a market in the press to find out every single conceivable thing about this kind of brief glimmer and window of hope, which then sparks a wave of stories that reignite suspicion and mistrust because of these, you know, unnamed source quotes on both sides, really.

1:24And then inevitably, you know, because reporters are going to get told stuff, you know, someone gets told something by someone. We don't know who, we don't know how reliable it is. They print it. You know, there'll be some element in it that's true, which shows that they must have some kind of inside line that then causes huge amounts of suspicion, basically, on both sides. And on this question, you know, on this occasion, rather, the big question, really, is what does this mean long-term? You know, has this driven a wrecking ball through the whole thing? Does this mean Charles and Harry are no longer back on the right track?

2:00Or will they just be able to sweep it under the carpet and move on? Well, I'm going to get to that. First of all, though, let's start with the actual statement. It was sent to Newsweek and a bunch of other outlets on Saturday in the daytime. And after a week in which there had been a whole range of briefings in the media, spanning everything from whether Harry could ever come back as a working royal, and various suggestions he couldn't, and all the rest of it. and I think there was some stuff about where Harry's kids might go to school, whether they might go to school in Britain. Now, my understanding is all of that was over the top, but here is the actual statement that was made.

2:38So a Sussex spokesperson said, recent reporting of the Duke's view of the tone of the meeting, i.e. with Charles, is categorically false. The quotes attributed to him are pure invention, fed one can only assume by sources intent on sabotaging any reconciliation between father and son. presumably those same sources have also chosen to disclose that gifts were exchanged because that was another thing in the Sun's story was it said that this photograph had been given and I think they got it very slightly wrong I think they'd suggested that it had been a picture which had Megan in it and it was just the kids so presumably those same sources have also chosen to disclose that gifts were exchanged while we would have preferred such details to remain private for the sake of clarity we can confirm that a framed photograph was handed over However, the image did not contain the Duke and Duchess.

3:28Now, obviously, Harry has made no secret of the fact that he really hates these kind of briefings that appear in newspapers. And this particular one appeared to kind of attribute a specific quote to him. So I think a big part of the reason for wanting to kind of jump out of the gates and kind of attack this one was because, you know, there was that line in quotes saying that, and let me find it for you. So this is all it all started in the sun, this particular story. And Harry was supposed to have remarked to somebody that his meeting with the king sounded very official, like an official visit.

4:03So, in other words, the suggestion seemed to be that Harry felt like he was being treated as though he was any dignitary, like, you know, the ambassador to a country. And that, you know, he was given effectively the cold shoulder, a fopping off by his father. So one part of the statement is saying that's categorically false. That's not what the tone of the meeting was like. That's not the way Harry felt. I understand Harry really enjoyed seeing his father and was excited about it. So one part of it is just knock that down. But then the most inflammatory bit, the kind of controversial bit, is this second paragraph.

4:40It's by sources intent on sabotaging any reconciliation between father and son. So that actually is the incendiary bit that is saying, you know, a plot to stop Harry and Charles repairing their relationship. Now, obviously, if such plot did exist, that would make Harry incredibly upset and sad. We can only imagine, I think, that Charles would, you know, assuming it had been done behind Charles' back without his consent, would also be upset at anything getting in the way of a relationship that he wanted to pursue, assuming he does indeed want to pursue it. but then the other question is, is that real?

5:21Is there really a plot, or is that all taking a bit too far? So it was all, like I said, a story in the sun. It had the photograph element. It had this kind of packaged thing about it just being cold. I suppose it was a suggestion that there was coldness, that it was maybe theatre rather than genuine warmth. you know for what it's worth I really don't think Harry came away from his visit to Britain unhappy with how things went I think he looks like he was enjoying every single engagement he was on I was actually on his very final engagement he visited the Diana Award and went to this kind of summit where these kids who were dealing with the trials and tribulations of modern life and dealing with their problems by taking action, came together for a summit.

6:11He seemed like he was buzzing. He was very happy in that room. And we got a statement at the end of it saying that he had really enjoyed his trip to Britain. And it said seeing, reconnecting with old friends or something in those kind of words. But it was very much my understanding at the time that that kind of meant Charles too. So why did all this come out? Why did this appear in a UK newspaper? I'm not definitively ruling out the idea that it was a sabotage plot and there are probably people who would love to sabotage it. Honestly, there probably are. Harry is not a popular guy in Britain generally.

6:44He will be a very unpopular person in parts of the palace. There are people in the palace who he dislikes very strongly, who he wrote disparaging things about in his book. So I'm not completely discounting that possibility. There is also another possibility, which is that actually a couple of weeks ago now, Us Weekly ran an exclusive. It was kind of, the headline was actually weirdly very similar to the suns it was the same format inside and they said inside the very emotional reunion between prince harry and king charles after nearly two years apart i'm actually going to find the sun headline so that i can read that too so the sun's headline was inside harry's meeting with king including kisses pick of archie and lilibet and what it means for his future um so you know pretty similar treatment actually but that is a journalistic coincidence i think it's just how we write stuff but so this article in us weekly said that the meeting was sparked by handwritten letter from harry earlier this year to charles expressing his desire to reconnect and said they were not sure if it was going to happen until just in the last week but it was super positive and very relaxed but the other bit is it says they were catching up personally about the children and what has been going on with charles and his health there were hugs and tears at the meeting.

8:03So obviously, if there weren't hugs and tears at the meeting, then, you know, arguably maybe somebody did just want to go and put a slightly different version of events out via, you know, a media organisation that they preferred to speak to than compared to Us Weekly. But it's still, yeah, I mean, you know, this is, it's kind of extraordinary that all of this is happening. It's extraordinary on both counts. I do not believe for a minute that Us Weekly completely invented quotes out of thin air. A lot of what's in there, you could probably take an educated guess, like catching up personally about the children and what has been going on with Charles and his health is what a person who didn't know would assume that they were all talking about.

8:49But saying there were tears in the meeting is very specific. so I don't think a journalist who is going to make up a story and far be it for me to malign us I'm not here to malign them particularly but for what it's worth no journalist who is going to make up a story I don't think would take the risk of saying there were tears because it's so counterintuitive especially with the royal family Harry is a much more emotionally on the surface person than Charles but I would be exceptionally surprised if Charles was crying I don't, I struggle to see that Harry was crying. So if it was a, if those quotes were made up by anybody, then it's a very odd thing to make up.

9:31So it does, all of this stuff begs the question, who is telling these different news organisations these different things? And obviously it's very easy to just fly off the handle on both sides, you know, fly off the handle and be like, why are they going and talking about what should have been a private meeting? But actually I think if there's going to be any possibility at all, then both sides need to just accept that this is it's just an inevitability of royal life like this is always going to be a feature and there is i don't know whether either harry or charles or anyone very senior within their you know within their operations is responsible for this stuff it might be they're not um but i think you know often on harry's side in particular there's anxiety about this kind of stuff because there's a fear that the UK newspapers and what they say and how they characterize things will shape public opinion in Britain.

10:25And so something has to be done or else they'll just be left to get away with it. And I actually don't necessarily think that's true. I think Harry's just going to have to really try and drill it in himself that he just has to ignore this stuff. Like he just has to. It is a feature of the British press that they will always write this kind of stuff. And I always remember there was a sub-editor, you know, way, way, way back in the day, must be probably best part of 15 years ago now when I was a trainee journalist on a local newspaper just in northwest London. And, you know, I took myself too seriously, like all trainee local journalists should.

11:01And she told me she loved her local newspaper, a different one, not the one we worked for, but she loved hers. It was called The Advertiser and she used to call it The Exaggerator because everything they reported was ridiculously over the top. But that was kind of what she liked about it. She knew it was ridiculous and she could see the reality that sat beneath the sensationalist headlines. And that was part of the appeal for her. It made it a more enjoyable read because it made it kind of lighthearted and ridiculous. And I guess in a way, that's an experience meeting people who have a... Harry's a very serious guy, and particularly around facts and truth and all the rest of it.

11:37He's a very, very serious guy, takes himself super seriously. But as a royal, you probably get to meet fewer people who come from the opposite side of that particular divide. And, you know, don't take themselves seriously at all and don't take the papers seriously at all. And like news organisations where they know they have to take it with a pinch of salt because it might be nonsense and are perfectly willing to let go of and drop any information that they've got from those news organisations as soon as they get some more facts from somewhere else. Because they never really fully bought into it to begin with.

12:11but if royals don't get to burst that bubble, Harry has always cut from the cloth that he thinks that the newspapers brainwash people and shape their opinions, despite the fact that there is actually verifiable data-based evidence that people do think differently to the newspapers they read. And actually, if you study opinion polling in the long term, and regular listeners will know that I'm a big fan of opinion polling and will even be talking about it at the end of this very episode. But if you study opinion polling over time, you will see that the big highs and lows and ebbs and flows of royal popularity are not attached to particular stories in the press.

12:58Like this kind of thing, individual stories can have a massive impact on the reputations of people who aren't already, or even if they're famous, either aren't famous, where if they are famous, have never particularly had a bad story written about them. So in other words, there's one idea of who that person is, a new story comes along and shreds that perspective and gives a different one. But that's not the royals. The royals are, you know, they've had a thousand negative stories written about them. More than that, they've had many more positive written about them. They are always the product of millions of column inches and minutes of news coverage on TV, radio, in print, online, on social media, on YouTube, everywhere.

13:38So no one individual story is going to have a mega impact. And you can see that when you study the long-term polling. It just does not. No one individual story has any impact at all on Harry's reputation. What's much more important, what does create these big fluctuations in popularity, actually, is the things that Harry and Meghan in particular do themselves. you know so um quitting the palace had a massive impact on harry and megan's popularity in britain doing the oprah interview again massive impact the stuff they do themselves in particular when they are on camera and being looked at that is what has a that's what has a really big impact basically and you know i do sympathize with the feeling that i'm sure harry had and probably some of the people around them had that things were just getting out of control in the British press and something needed to be said to rein people back in again and you know on one level there's nothing necessarily wrong with that but obviously the big you know controversial word here was sabotage and I do wonder whether in the long march of history there may be a degree of regret around that particular word and look if there is a sabotage operation I don't know if there is but let's not rule it out, then that would be from someone who didn't want peace to happen.

15:02Like that's what they would be sabotaging. That would be the whole point of the sabotage operation. In which case, jumping in with allegations of sabotage is probably realistically going to give them just the ammunition they've been looking for in order to torpedo future meetings, because that will be their end game. Their end game would be, under that scenario, would be to torpedo any chances of Harry having further meetings with his father and further repairing that and healing that relationship and you know reconnecting with his dad um and so the the fight the public drama the scrap itself is the thing that's most likely to produce that outcome um so you know i still completely believe that harry wants to patch things up i think he believes he still can i think he loved seeing his father um i think that there will still be efforts to just draw a line under this and move on and not dwell on it, which I think is hugely important.

15:57And then hopefully not let it scupper long-term plans for peace, but it's probably going to happen again. This is the key thing. This will come up again. And so they will need to be ready to deal with it again. And they will probably need to deal with it differently next time because you can't just cycle through the same process over and over and over again. So in summary, you know, if somebody wants to come along and throw a spanner in the works, let them throw it. You know, Harry's team should just let them throw it in the works let the papers print what they want to print ignore it um and know that people believe what they can see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears um and get out into public you know get out in front of people who need help get out and do some good get back to britain meet your father again work on that relationship and people will see that with their own eyes and when harry was in britain people could see with their own eyes how happy he was and how energized he was by those interactions that he had and it did create some a wave of positive coverage for him in britain um but what people can see the fact that people can see it for themselves is what will move the dial for harry um so he just needs to forget about what's being printed in the papers and beyond that you know stay positive play the long game look ahead to whenever he's next going to come to britain at a point when it's not too controversial obviously he's got a big high profile court case that might not be the time to see his father but at some point try and come on a less controversial time get a date in the diary with the king and dare i say it who knows maybe it's even time to bring the kids with him and you know get give charles another chance to see prince archie and princess little bit and i think that he might actually really enjoy that and just focus on that just focus on trying to have a relationship with your father where he comes away feeling really happy that he saw you.

17:49And, you know, he comes away feeling energized and positive and upbeat and happy. And that is what I think that Harry should do. And on that note, I'm going to take a quick break. But before I do, remember to rate and review The Royal Report on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your favorite shows. And when I'm back, Prince Andrew and Fergie have reportedly been banned from public appearances.

18:15Hello and welcome back to the show. Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson have reportedly been banned from royal events, including Christmas at Sandringham, after new Epstein files emerged showing that Prince Andrew paid$200 for massages on Epstein's private island. So last week, Sarah Ferguson was ditched by her charities, by about seven charities, over emails published in the Mail on Sunday, which showed she sent these kind of fawning messages to Jeffrey Epstein, and it was after Andrew was supposed to have broken off his friendship with Epstein, And, you know, it was the first one was right before it became apparent that Sarah Ferguson had a massive loan from Epstein.

18:53She then admonished him in this big public statement and then she groveled to him afterwards. So it was absolutely excruciating. But now we have some new Andrew documents linking him, you know, again to Epstein. So this has all come out from America as the Epstein files start to trickle out. and they show that Andrew flew to Epstein's private island, which to be fair, we did already know that, but he's on a flight manifest. And there's a ledger. The ledger is heavily redacted. The only name that does show is Andrew and it shows that he paid$200, apparently by check several times, for what is described as massage, exercise and yoga.

19:34So that cost a$200 bop and that is a significant amount of money because a number of Epstein's victims have testified. in court that they were paid$200 per session by Epstein. So, you know, obviously Prince Andrew denies the allegations against him, which is to say he denies Virginia Jeffery's allegations that she was forced to have sex with him when she was a 17-year-old trafficking victim of Epstein's. But needless to say, this is, you know, if Virginia Jeffery were a lifestay, she would regard these documents as adding further weight to her case and to her evidence and to her story. She would regard this as corroborating evidence.

20:14Now, it's not a smoking gun, obviously, but documentary evidence is always very useful to claimants or to accusers because it is objective. It's objective and factual. It doesn't come down to subjective perception. And so that's very helpful to victims in kind of he said, she said type cases. So like I said, this is all coming out through the US House Oversight Committee as it releases more and more of these Epstein documents, but they are not necessarily done. There could well be more stuff in here related to Andrew. And I think what the palace will be really worried about is that beyond these documents, there'll be some kind of email from Andrew that really blows his whole defense to pieces or something of that ilk.

21:01But Andrew is not going away. This story is just absolutely persistently not going away. and so it is perhaps in some ways no surprise that there have also been stories in the British papers over the last few days about the king further cutting off his brother. But I think it does need to be taken with a little bit of a pinch of salt because the act, once you get past the headline, so Andrew was told to miss royal Christmas and so people got quite excited about that. I've been asked, should the king cut Andrew out completely? I did a debate on Good Morning Britain, which is a morning news show on ITV, on that subject, and obviously said yes, he should.

21:47But in the detail of these stories, he has been told to be invisible at future gatherings, and implicit in that statement is the secondary statement that he would be at those gatherings. If you're not there, then you're not invisible at the gathering. You're just at home watching telly. So I think, you know, if they're expecting Andrew to be physically present at different events, but just keeping a low profile and staying out of the way, then they've tried that. This is what they've been trying with Andrew for years and years and years. And it doesn't work because he just always pushes himself back into the limelight, as he did but two weeks ago at the funeral for the Duchess of Kent, when he insisted on going up to Prince William and talking to him, you know, quite persistently.

22:32when it was very clear William was trying to blank him. So, you know, in the Sunday Times, a source close to Charles said, you can't sack someone from being your brother, but this year if the Duke and Duchess, that is Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, were both to be as honourable as the previous year when they didn't go to the royal family's Christmas, it would be very much for the best and the family would not be disappointed, not least to avoid the king having to make any more difficult decisions. so that feels like a bit of a warning shot across prince andrew's bow now he it's not totally clear so any more difficult decisions implies that difficult decision has been taken before that might refer to the decision to stop funding andrew because the king did use to fund his brother and at some point in the last few years he cut off that funding so he doesn't get charles doesn't give him money anymore.

23:24Charles tried to force Andrew out of Royal Lodge, his mansion, 30-room mansion, and into Frogmore Cottage, which is much, much smaller, but also has much lower costs attached to it because it's within the police cordon at Windsor, whereas Royal Lodge needs its own private security paid for. So, you know, what does this kind of warning mean? What might they think they still have in their toolbox to deal with Andrew? Could it be finally actually definitively kick him out of Royal Lodge, do they still have something they could fire at him there that they haven't done so yet? Might it be like a full scale ban on the entire family, you know, inviting Andrew to anything?

24:04It's not totally clear, but clearly I think the audience for that quote is not just the public. I think it sounds like the audience is Andrew too. And so, yeah, I mean, it will be very interesting to see but christmas is coming i think that they probably will be successful at keeping andrew and fergie out of the way at christmas and you know maybe pressuring them to just not even come to sandringham at all or if they come to sandringham then just stay at the big house and don't go to church but i think the bigger danger area is probably going to be easter at Windsor. So Andrew lives in Windsor and they go to church every year right by Andrew's house.

24:50So his argument would be, well, I'm a Christian, you can't stop me worshipping. And Charles is the ceremonial head of the Church of England. And sure, the church is not supposed to stop somebody from coming and worshipping. However, it's just so toxic that Andrew keeps getting photographed side by side with members of the royal family, with William, with Charles, laughing his head off at a funeral as well in the way that only Andrew can. And this saga has been going on for just so long. It's been going on for 15 years. It was 15 years ago that Andrew got photographed in Central Park with Jeffrey Epstein, after Epstein had already been convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution.

25:34And it's just still not going away. And if you just, you know, scandals that stick around for ages and ages and ages cause really serious long-term reputational harm, that can be irreversible. And that, I think, is where the royal family are with this. I'm going to talk more about royal popularity in the next segment because there is some really striking data. It's actually survey data that I've talked about before, but it's a deeper dive into it. And there's some really startling stuff. But basically, if you were, you know, let's say you were 14 when Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew walked through Central Park together, you would be 29 now and you would have had your whole formative years living with this story.

26:21And 29, as I'll just talk about later, is a really significant age because that's the average age for a new mother in Britain, according to census data. Your average new mum who has been having a baby for the first time is 29 years old. And so you've got somebody who's gone from age 14 to starting to hit that parent age, who's lived all of those formative years with the royal family being linked to America's most notorious, abusive, serial, sexual abuser, paedophile and sex trafficker. and that is just toxic it's really really toxic and certain elements of the kind of theater and choreography have been particularly toxic like for example when virginia jeffrey was trying to serve you know her lawyers were trying to serve prince andrew and they had to do it in person and so he went up to balmoral to stay with the queen where they wouldn't be able to get to him and he kind of hid it looked like the queen was shielding him from justice so some of this stuff has been just so toxic and so much of it is so indefensible like andrew will always say he's innocent and he has every right to do so he's never been convicted she virginia sued him they settled out of court for an undisclosed sum but he did that without admitting liability he released a statement acknowledging that she was a jeffrey epstein sex trafficking victim but he didn't admit liability but needless to say you know he his lawyers put into evidence you know stuff from the tabloids in New York saying that she was, you know, she was a money hungry sex kitten and all of these things.

27:58They did horrific things during the case. And he has gone on TV and said absurd stuff. He went on TV and would not apologize for his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. He was asked by Emily Maitlis, you know, do you regret the friendship? And he said, no. he said even now no because epstein introduced him to all of these important people who he thought was scintillating and interesting and so for him that justified it and it's just so toxic because that is exactly where epstein's power came from he was untouchable as far as those victims those girls were concerned because he was surrounded by some of the most powerful people in the country and so prince andrew saying you know no i don't regret it because i it was introduced to all these powerful people is basically an affirmation of this kind of toxic web of influence and power and control that facilitated epstein's serial abuse and all of that is before you even consider his relationship with the chinese spy yang tenbo but you know i've talked about all of this numerous numerous times in this podcast so um i think the key thing now is even reading through these quotes it still feels really like a plea to Andrew to not embarrass the Royals.

29:13And I just feel that this is what they've been doing for years. I don't think that this story is actually changing all that much. I think this is exactly what they already tried to do with Andrew. And I think they'll succeed at Christmas and fail at Easter is my prediction. And, you know, in time, Andrew might keep a low profile for a bit, but in time he'll pop back up and try and force his way back into the public domain again, back in front of the cameras and try to embarrass members of the royal family. And it has been suggested, I don't know, but it's been suggested that he specifically targeted Prince William at the funeral of the Duchess of Kent, precisely because William's the one who's been trying to force him out.

29:53But, you know, honestly, he was on Charles' shoulder too and getting photographed next to Charles as well. So I actually kind of think, you know, his modus operandi might less be revenge and more, like, entitlement and ego. and part of me kind of thinks that actually it's more likely that he just gravitated towards the most high-profile and powerful royals because what he wanted was to shoehorn his way back into the public eye again. So we will keep an eye. I will keep an eye. We will watch. We will see what happens. But, you know, the other interesting thing here is actually it's a British media aspect of it, which is the British media have been going really hard on Andrew recently, and this was a bigger story in terms of the UK broadcasters than the Prince Harry Charles disagreement over the weekend.

30:40I was getting booked for stuff, radio appearances, TV stuff, over the weekend. I did Good Morning Britain this morning. I did a few radio appearances and it was all Andrew. No one wanted to know. No one even asked casually apart from another royal commentator who I was debating with. We had a chance about it. Other than that, no producers asked me what I thought about Harry and the allegations of sabotage. They were way more interested in Andrew. And that's really fascinating because even kind of 2022, you know, late to April, probably even 2023, really, that would be unheard of. I mean, they might think that they covered Harry's visit to the UK really prolifically.

31:24And so they just want to rest him for a bit. But it is still really interesting that they, you know, it was about the royal soap opera. It was about Harry's relationship with his father, and it was an on-the-record comment from a spokesperson, and nobody even casually asked me what I thought of it. They just wanted to know about Andrew. Well, on that note, I'm going to take one more quick break, but before I do, a reminder to follow me on X, formerly Twitter. I'm at Jack underscore Royston. You will find all my latest stories for Newsweek. When I'm back, for the first time ever, and I mean ever, A generation of British children is being raised by parents who are as likely to want to abolish the monarchy as keep it.