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The United Kingdom’s King Charles III has stripped his brother, Andrew, of the title of prince and ordered him to leave his lavish residence near Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday. Observers say the Palace is finally taking decisive action over Andrew’s connections to the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, and allegations that the two men sexually abused Virginia Giuffre when she was a teenager.
Andrew, 65, the second son of the late Queen Elizabeth and younger brother of King Charles, has faced growing scrutiny over his personal conduct and ties to Epstein. Earlier this month, he was pressured into giving up his title of Duke of York.
“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,” Andrew said at the time. He also said he “vigorously den[ies] the accusations” against him.
Buckingham Palace hopes to be seen as taking a decisive step, drawing a line after years of compromising scandals. In 2022, Andrew was removed from numerous royal duties due to his connections to Epstein.
How did Andrew’s ties to Epstein come to light?
Born in 1960, Andrew was once one of the more popular members of the British royal family, known for his military service as a helicopter pilot during the Falklands War in 1982.
For years, however, Andrew’s personal antics have generated embarrassing headlines, testing the patience of the royal family. In 2024, for instance, court documents revealed that a close adviser on Andrew’s business affairs was a suspected Chinese spy.
But it was Andrew’s persistent ties to Jeffrey Epstein that ultimately forced King Charles’s hand and led to Andrew stepping down from his royal duties in 2019. Epstein died by suicide in a US prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
In 2021, Virginia Giuffre – one of the most prominent accusers of Epstein – filed a lawsuit alleging rape and sexual abuse against then-Prince Andrew. She claimed she had been forced to have sex with him on multiple occasions when she was 17, a minor under US law.
Prince Andrew has always denied Giuffre’s allegations, even insisting that a now-infamous photograph that appeared to show them together had been doctored. But in 2022, he agreed to settle the lawsuit, costing him as much as $16m.
Virginia Giuffre died by suicide in April this year. She was 41 years old.
Earlier this month, British newspapers reported that Andrew had emailed Epstein in February 2011 – more than two months after the prince told the BBC he had severed all ties with his former associate.
The email was sent at a time of heightened media coverage of the Epstein scandal, with Andrew telling Epstein they were “in this together” and would “have to rise above it”.
These disclosures ultimately prompted Buckingham Palace’s response on Thursday.
What has Buckingham Palace said?
In a statement released on Thursday night, Buckingham Palace said the King’s brother is now to be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.
He will no longer be styled “Prince” or “His Royal Highness (HRH)” and he has lost his dukedom, earldom, barony, military ranks and royal patronages.
It also announced that he is to be evicted from his residence, the sprawling Royal Lodge that was once home to the Queen Mother, near Windsor Castle, west of London.
“His lease on Royal Lodge has, to date, provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease and he will move to alternative private accommodation,” the palace statement said.
“These censures are deemed necessary… Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse,” it added.
A palace source said the decision was taken by King Charles, but that he had the support of the wider family, including heir-to-the-throne Prince William, in a bid to limit reputational risks to the monarchy.
Elsewhere, culture secretary Lisa Nandy told the BBC’s Question Time programme that the king’s latest decision was a “truly brave, important, and correct step”, sending a “powerful message” to survivors of sexual abuse.
Activists from the anti-monarchy group Republic stage a protest at the entrance to Windsor Great Park and Royal Lodge, where Prince Andrew lives, on October 21, 2025, in Windsor, England [Peter Nicholls/Getty Images]Why has Andrew been evicted from Royal Lodge?
In recent weeks, the British press has been rife with speculation about Andrew’s finances after The Times newspaper reported on October 21 that he had not paid rent on his 30-room mansion – known as Royal Lodge – for two decades.
It was revealed that he had a lease on the property stipulating a “peppercorn rent”: In return for carrying out renovations and maintaining the mansion, Andrew was paying a rent of “one peppercorn” each year.
In a rare political intervention, a British parliamentary committee on Wednesday questioned whether Andrew should still be living in the house, which is owned by the monarch and located 5km (3 miles) south of Windsor Castle.
On October 28, the BBC also revealed that Prince Andrew had hosted Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell – Epstein’s associate, later jailed for sex trafficking – and Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced film producer convicted of rape, at Royal Lodge.
The three visited Andrew’s home in 2006 to celebrate his daughter’s 18th birthday, just two months after a United States arrest warrant had been issued for Epstein over the sexual assault of a minor.
A drone view shows Royal Lodge, a sprawling property on the estate surrounding Windsor Castle, where Britain’s former Prince Andrew lives, in Windsor, UK, on October 21, 2025 [Stringer/Reuters]Where will Andrew live now?
It is understood that Andrew will move to a property on the private Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, which will be privately funded by his brother, the king.
The wider Sandringham Estate covers approximately 8,100 hectares (20,000 acres) with 240 hectares (600 acres) of gardens, and the Palace has not stipulated which property he will stay in.
It is also understood that Andrew’s move to Sandringham will take place “as soon as practicable”.
His ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson – who still lives at Royal Lodge with him – will also move out of Royal Lodge and make her own living arrangements.
Have other royals in the UK been stripped of their titles in the past?
The stripping of Prince Andrew’s royal titles by King Charles III is unusual in modern British history.
Other royals have relinquished titles voluntarily – such as Princess Diana giving up HRH following her divorce from King Charles – and King Edward VIII, who abdicated from the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, an American woman who had been divorced twice.
Others have lost their privileges for political reasons – such as Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, for siding with Germany in World War I – but there has not been a case of a reigning monarch or immediate family being stripped of their status for scandal-related reasons.
In that sense, Andrew’s case is the most serious demotion of a senior British royal in recent memory.
