Prince Andrew is reportedly staying put at the Royal Lodge...at least, for now.
According to a report from The Sunday Times published on Friday, Nov. 8, the embattled Duke of York has secured enough funds to remain at his royal home, despite his brother, King Charles, cutting him off financially.
"It is understood that Prince Andrew’s money has been approved by Sir Michael Stevens, the keeper of the privy purse, as coming from legitimate sources," the outlet reports.
Prince William has been residing in the 30-room estate alongside his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, since 2003.
Earlier this year, the disgraced royal received written notice that King Charles would "cut him off financially" if he "refused to move out of the estate in Windsor and into a more modest accommodation," reportedly Frogmore Cottage, the former home of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
King Charles also reportedly stopped paying for Prince Andrew's 24-hour, seven days a week security detail, which according to The Times cost upwards of £3 million a year.
According to The Times, Prince Andrew no longer "receives public money," adding that "with no discernible income beyond a Royal Navy pension, there have long been questions over the source of the duke’s wealth."
It was reported that Prince Andrew was refusing to leave the Royal Lodge because doing so would be as if he was "publicly accepting guilt" for the well-documented allegations against him.
Prince Andrew was stripped of his royal titles by his late mother, Queen Elizabeth, after his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—who died inside a Manhattan jail in August 2019—were uncovered and he was later accused of sexually assaulting a minor, Virginia Guiffre, when she was 17.
Epstein settled with Guiffree out of court in 2022 and has consistently denied all accusations against him.
"What I think he feels is that if he moves out of Royal Lodge it's somehow publicly accepting guilt for which he has not been proved," Royal expert Hugo Vickers told the Sun, referring to the sexual assault case between Prince Andrew and Giuffre.
"If you were running a charity you wouldn't be asking Prince Andrew to come and be your guest of honor. So nobody wants him in a public way," the author continued, adding that Prince Andrew wants to continue "living at Royal Lodge, playing golf, seeing his children and grandchildren and riding in the park and it is expensive."
Other royal experts have argued that it would behoove the embattled royal to leave the Royal Lodge.
"The 65-year-old Duke will never restore his reputation—he's old, soiled, damaged goods and no amount of charitable work or outings at church with more upright members of the family are going to change that," the Daily Mail's Angela Mollard wrote back in September.
"But Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie are young women with royal-adjacent lives ahead of them," she added at the time. "For their sake, and in honor of their hard work and discretion, their father needs to do the right thing and hightail it to Frogmore Cottage pronto."
