It's not every day that a royal becomes a commoner. But Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday that Andrew, formerly known as Prince Andrew, would now be an ordinary citizen known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. He will also lose his taxpayer-funded digs at the Royal Lodge and move to a private home. The palace's press release added that Windsor "continues to deny the allegations against him."
The allegations in question have to do with Windsor's ties to two different foreigners: American pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019, and Chinese businessman Yang Tengbo, whom the British government accuses of espionage. After Windsor was accused of participating in Epstein's sexual abuses and gave an interview that made things look even worse for him, the prince reportedly turned toward Yang for a potential fresh start in China.
