After being diagnosed with cancer, King Charles and Princess Kate Middleton had to withdraw from public life. This led to months of wild Princess of Wales health rumors. Queen Camilla got ill. Princess Anne fell painfully and was kicked by a horse. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's renegade operations continue from California. This year has been filled with a lot of events for the royal family.
Now, British high court evidence shows a suspected Chinese spy barred from entering the UK was a "close" associate of the exiled monarch, Prince Andrew. This has once again placed him under the scrutiny of the British government.
According to Page Six, Prince Andrew will not spend the holidays at Sandringham with his brother, King Charles, and the royal family. He was removed from the royal family's Thursday Christmas supper at Buckingham Palace guest list. Therefore, he will miss the chance to be photographed with Prince William and Princess Kate Middleton on Christmas Day's very public walk to church.
As an option, Prince Andrew will reportedly hide at Royal Lodge, his decrepit Windsor home. His devoted ex-wife Sarah Ferguson will accompany him, while their kids Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie will visit their in-laws.
The Duke of York wanted to attend the royal family's Christmas supper, but Ferguson had to persuade him otherwise, a source told Page Six.
"The Duchess of York has advised Prince Andrew that this is the best course of action, and he's accepted that it's the right and honorable thing to do," said a York source.
"Nobody wants him in public life and he accepts that," Hugo Vickers, noted royal historian and friend of the family, told Page Six.
An anonymous woman told The Sun on Tuesday that Prince Andrew could not stop staring at her cleavage at a royal engagement 20 years ago.
The 24-year-old event organizer claimed she met the monarch at a doctor's office.
"He wouldn't leave me alone," she recalled.
Prince Andrew, 64, was forced to leave public life in November 2019 over his ties to convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. These are his newest mistakes.
"He has nothing else except riding in the park and golf, his children and grandchildren - that's all he has, literally nothing," Vickers said.
After King Charles tried to force him out of Royal Lodge earlier this year, the prince is clinging on. Prince Andrew recently raised the money to rent a 30-room estate that requires hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs.
"Andrew doesn't want to move out of Royal Lodge as he thinks it will make him look guilty when he doesn't feel guilty ... he's lived there for 22 years," Vickers said.
According to The Independent, British courts removed secrecy orders to reveal Prince Andrew's Chinese contact this week. This person has been barred from visiting the UK over allegations that he established royal ties to influence British elites for the Chinese Communist Party. The order was lifted after days of mystery.
Yang Tengbo, identified as the man, said he had "done nothing wrong or unlawful" on Monday. Yang, or Christopher Yang, visited Buckingham Palace twice in June 2018.
The Daily Mail reports that the Palace has "grave concerns" about Prince Andrew's relationship with Yang. Yang, who called himself the "special envoy of Prince Andrew," led the royal's Pitch@Palace China initiative, a "Shark Tank"-style program from which the Prince took a cut.
Prince Andrew, a trade ambassador, "ceased all contact" with Yang after receiving advice from the British government.
His administration told the BBC that the king met with the businessman "through official channels" and that "nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed."
Security found Prince Andrew's senior advisor Dominic Hampshire's 2021 contact on Yang's phone, which was shocking.
"Outside of [Prince Andrew's] closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree many, many people would like to be on," Hampshire wrote.
Hampshire's statement that they have skillfully navigated former private secretaries and discreetly removed those they don't trust after meeting with Prince Andrew worries palace officials even more.
He added, "under your guidance, we found a way to get the relevant people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor."
It is unclear who these people are or why they would want to elude security.
The High Court justices said Yang had earned "unusual degree of trust from a senior member of the Royal Family who was prepared to enter into business activities with him." That the friendship evolved while the prince was "under considerable pressure," "could make him vulnerable to the misuse of that kind of influence."
Business Times has reached out to Buckingham Palace for comments.
