^^^ So far George S. and Katie Couric aren’t being accused of having sex with under-aged Epstein victims.
That’s pretty old news - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/13/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-new-york-elite.html (July)
…but I’d say there’s a big difference between attending a dinner and being accused of rape, denying being there/any contact, having that denial refuted by photos with arm around teen women, etc.
The two situations are not remotely similar, IMO.
George V being related to another cousin, Wilhelm II of Germany, did not prevent war between the two countries when both were monarchs.
Well, the royal family has not had a member that was so embarrassing since the Duke of Windsor died in 1972. The assorted infidelities and inappropriate romances in the years since then have been decidedly pedestrian.
^^Oh come on. Charles and Camilla’s calls were pretty bad, and pretty juvenile for as old as they were.
No.
The exception was that George VI issued a Letters Patent in 1947 which made Philip HRH. Otherwise, on birth, Charles would have had the courtesy title of Earl of Merioneth and Anne would have been Lady Anne Mountbatten.
If you’re limiting it to people born into the royal family, and excluding the antics of Diana, Fergie, and Camilla,you still have Margaret’s affair with Roddy Llewellyn, Andrew and Koo Stark, Harry in a Nazi uniform, for starters.
I would say it is “remotely” similar. While it is true they didn’t participate criminal activities themselves, they hung out with the criminal, lending him some kind of support and marginalizing his crime.
I also read that George V distanced himself from Nicholas as he didn’t want the British population to get any ideas about abolishing the monarchy. I think that was so awful of him to leave his family like that.
He should do a second interview, while working out in the gym.
This is the story that is better than ‘The Crown’!
It just keeps getting worse for Prince Andrew aka Randy Andy aka Airmiles Andy…his flag, which flies above his residence, is gone - along with the flagpole! And, as if he and his ex are not tone deaf enough, is ex-wife, Sarah, has just returned to UK from Riyadh, following an invitation to get cozy with MbS (think Jamal Kashoggi)
@CheddarcheeseMN LOL!
Half of these are still Prince Andrew, and wearing a Nazi uniform doesn’t come close to being an actual Nazi and fascist sympathizer.
Mind you, when I talk about the Duke of Windsor, I’m not talking about him marrying an American divorce. I’m talking about his other antics, such as his being a buddy of the Nazis, visiting Nazi Germany in 1937, hanging out with Hitler, praising him, etc. Things like, after the fall of France, neither staying with his army in Dunkirk, nor evacuating to England. Instead, he traveled to a lavish villa in Fascist Spain, and from there to Portugal, where he stayed at a house of a wealthy pro-Nazi. He stayed there until he was commanded to go to the Bahamas.
So marrying a divorce was the least of his crimes.
Buckingham Palace or Peyton Place? Hard to tell the difference these days.
I feel for Andrew’s daughters. Not because the older one’s wedding is apparently going to be curtailed or because they have to work, but because their father is a huge, entitled oaf with no sense of judgment or decorum. Their mother is a bit on the loony side as well. I did read that the Queen is quite fond of both princesses, so that should help them out a bit. They should not be held liable for their father’s indiscretions, a word I use because he has not been found guilty of anything. IF he actually did sleep with underage girls, the term would not be indiscretions, but criminal acts. However, I can’t say that because I don’t know for sure and one is innocent until proven guilty.
Not only did George V choose not to rescue his Romanov relations, he distanced himself from his German roots by changing the family name to Windsor, a distinctly more English sounding moniker than Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1917. Of course, the monarchies were all inter-related due to the machinations of Queen Victoria in marrying off her 9 children by Prince Albert (in a can…).
Andrew had a genuine, serious relationship with a nice, intelligent woman, who met the Queen a number of times - Koo Stark. The healthiest thing would have been if all the pearl clutching (nude in movie, oh no an American) had not forced them apart.
You’re a better person than I, @techmom99 . But OJ wasn’t found guilty, either.
Seems probable to me that he didn’t realize she was under 18, so now he must deny the whole thing. Really an indictment of our culture that once a girl hits 18, anything goes. The same cultural belief that enables predatory professors.
An interesting question is what crimes need your friends commit to require you to permanently separate yourself from them, even after they served their punishment?
The age of consent in NY is 17, so consensual sexual conduct would have been legal. I believe the woman alleges the conduct was not consensual.
The entire interview is available for viewing on youtube. I’ve watched il.I was stunned by how completely tone deaf Prince Andrew is in it.
There are parts in what I’ve seen so far that made my flesh crawl. The first that in which PA is asked whether he regrets his friendship with Epstein. (FYI,PA keeps emphasizing that he wasn’t really friends with Epstein he was friends with Maxwell.) Basically, he said no because he had been able to make so many useful contacts through Epstein. He repeated that at the end of the interview.
[Roberts’ attorney mocked that response quite well, I think. Essentially said: This is Prince Andrew, he could meet virtually anyone he wanted. ]
Then he is asked why he went to visit Epstein after he was convicted of sex abuse. He says it’s because he {PA) was a “moral” person and couldn’t end a friendship on the phone; it had to be done in person. So, he flew to the US so he could tell Epstein in person–and stayed with him for 10 days. It’s during this stay that Epstein threw a birthday party for PA and was photographed with him in Central Park. He repeated this again near the end of the interview, saying he did this because he is an “honorable” person. He did admit that in retrospect it was a mistake and he “let the side,” i.e., the royal family, down by doing it.
I hadn’t realized when watching what the time gap was, but apparently --listening to commentators–he claimed that he had no contact with Epstein between 2006 and 2010. So, if you haven’t had any contact with someone for four years, why is it necessary to visit him in person to say you no longer want to be friends?
Third, I know why he did it, but…when asked whether Virginia Roberts is a liar, he gave a convoluted answer which wasn’t an answer at all. When asked whether he would co-operate with an investigation, he said he’d have to listen to let advice and then would do it if told by his advisers that he had to.
He kept insisting that he never saw anything inappropriate during his visits with Epstein & said Epstein may have altered his behavior when he was around. He said if he said people around, he would just have assumed they were staff.
The picture of himself with Roberts was interesting. He said he had no memory of the pic and wasn’t sure it wasn’t faked. He said it was impossible to tell. But then, when the interviewer said Epstein apparently took the photo, he jumped in to say Epstein never took photos; I think he said he didn’t have a camera. You know, if you only know someone as a “plus one” [ to Maxwell] then how do you know he didn’t take photos? [ Roberts said it was taken with her camera; she handed it to Epstein & asked him to take the photo.]
Near the end, he said that the interview was good for his “mental health,” because he’d been struggling with this a long time and talked about how social media put all this bad info out there.
At the end he was given a chance to say anything else he wanted. He said he thought the interviewer had dragged all the necessary info out of him.
But this is at the heart of how sexual discrimination and even assault is still handled in business, sports, politics, everywhere. With very few exceptions the organization weighs how important the accused is, what value that person brings to the table against what will be lost if they discipline/fire/arrest/disassociate with the accused. And since traditionally men have been the ones in the position of power, it’s the men who are more important/valuable so they are protected whatever their actions. Because the accused has more “value” than the person they victimized.
PA is apparently not in on the fact that most organizations and people at least pretend this isn’t the case and he was just stating the obvious (to him) that the value he received from Epstein was more important than the fact that a few unknown peons were victimized. This is still how society works, just very few people are that honest about the calculation.
I agree that is how it works, although I hope things are beginning to change. However, I don’t chalk it up to honesty but stupidity or just clear lack of understanding anything outside his bubble. Most people would be astute enough to put some spin on it. Andrew didn’t and tainted the family firm.