Prince Andrew has shared his reasons for stepping back from his royal titles after discussions with The King and his family.
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Prince Andrew has officially announced that he will relinquish all of his remaining royal titles, marking a major shift in his public role within the monarchy.
In a formal statement, he said: "In discussion with The King, and my immediate and wider family, we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family."
"I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life."
"With His Majesty's agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honors which have been conferred upon me."
"As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me."
According to Buckingham Palace, the Duke will no longer use any of his official titles or honors, including his association with the title Duke of York.
The decision comes as fallout continues from his involvement in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, which has long cast a shadow over his public life and the wider Royal Family.
Prince Andrew has announced that he will give up his royal titles
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While Prince Andrew will legally retain the dukedom — a title that can only be stripped by an Act of Parliament — he will no longer make use of it in any public capacity. The same goes for several of his royal distinctions and ceremonial roles.
He is also stepping away from his position as a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) and from his prestigious role as a Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, which represents one of the highest honors in the British monarchy.
In addition to the changes concerning Andrew’s own titles, the BBC has reported that his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, will also stop using her former title of The Duchess of York. However, the couple’s daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, will continue to hold their princess titles without alteration.
This latest announcement adds another chapter to the long-running controversy that has surrounded the Duke since his ties to Jeffrey Epstein came to light. The news also comes just days before the release of a posthumous memoir by Virginia Giuffre, the woman who once brought a civil sexual assault case against him — a case that was settled out of court for several million dollars.
Giuffre, who was 41, died by suicide earlier this year at her home in Australia. Before her passing, she completed her memoir titled Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, which details her experiences and the years-long fight that followed.
Giuffre detailed an alleged sexual encounter with Prince Andrew
Virginia Giuffre
In her book, Giuffre alleged that she met Prince Andrew in March 2001 and described going out to dinner and to a nightclub with him before returning to Ghislaine Maxwell’s London townhouse. There, she claimed she was pressured by Maxwell to ‘do for him what you do for Jeffrey.’
"The next morning, Maxwell told me: 'You did well. The prince had fun,'" Giuffre wrote, further alleging that Epstein later gave her $15,000 as payment.
Prince Andrew has consistently and emphatically denied all of Giuffre’s allegations. Maxwell was later convicted of sex trafficking in 2021, and Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges.