Andrew will reportedly accompany Queen Elizabeth to the races over Platinum Jubilee weekend. Video / AP
Jeffrey Epstein reportedly called Prince Andrew a "useful idiot" behind his back, according to a bombshell new book.
Journalist Tina Brown writes in The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor - the Truth and the Turmoil, that the "friendship" between the paedophile and the prince was more transactional than anything else.
An excerpt from the book published in the Telegraph reads: "Privately, Epstein told people that Andrew was an idiot, but - to him - a useful one."
"A senior royal, even if tainted, is always a potent magnet abroad," Brown continues. "Epstein confided to a friend that he used to fly the Duke of York to obscure foreign markets, where governments were obliged to receive him, and Epstein went along as HRH's investment adviser. With Andrew as frontman, Epstein could negotiate deals with these (often) shady players."
Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for child sex-trafficking charges.
Prince Andrew still denies knowing anything about Epstein's behaviour. In January, he was stripped of his royal and military titles as a sexual assault lawsuit moved forward against him.
Virginia Giuffre filed the suit after claiming Epstein forced her to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was just 17.
Andrew's lawyers said he "unequivocally denies Giuffre's false allegations against him" and he has never been charged - but paid millions to settle the case.
Prince Andrew was criticised for his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Photo / Getty Images
Brown adds that "Epstein made Andrew feel he had joined the big time — the deals, the girls, the plane, the glittering New York world, where he wasn't seen as a full-grown man still dependent on his mother's Privy Purse strings or on the harsh pecking order of the Palace. The duke was always as oversexed as a boob-ogling adolescent.
"Andrew, unfortunately, exhibited classic symptoms of what is scientifically recognised (sic) as the Dunning-Kruger effect, the cognitive bias in which people come to believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are."
Brown claims Andrew had a combination of "overweening self-confidence and unchallenged ignorance" and that Epstein "deftly exploited his sense of grievance".
She also reveals how Epstein's "madam" Ghislaine Maxwell originally connected him with the prince.
"Prince Andrew was Ghislaine's biggest social catch to present to Epstein," Brown writes. "He was easy to entertain and satiate. Andrew, Epstein and Ghislaine became a peripatetic social trio — the Three Musketeers of Lust — showing up together at Ascot, joining a shoot at Sandringham, and stepping out at the Queen's Dance of the Decades at Windsor Castle in June 2000."
The highly anticipated book will be released on April 26.
