Princess Eugenie is marking her 36th birthday on Monday, March 23, but with the multiple scandals involving her parents Sarah Ferguson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, royal sources note the celebrations will likely be rather quiet. After Eugenie's father was arrested in February and both the princess and her sister, Princess Beatrice, were mentioned in multiple emails in the Epstein files, one royal expert said Eugenie is facing a “personal crisis.”
It’s unknown whether Princess Eugenie and her family are spending her birthday in the U.K. or in Portugal, where they live part of the year. Former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond told the Mirror that no matter where Eugenie is, she’ll likely keep a “low profile.”
"Both Eugenie and Beatrice must be feeling the heat of the headlines that are now turning on them. And so I doubt whether this birthday will be one she will particularly feel like celebrating in a big way,” Bond said.
Princess Beatrice was photographed leaving a Notting Hill bar with husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi over the weekend, but Bond said that it would be surprising if Princess Eugenie celebrated her birthday in any public way.
“Both princesses seem to have decided that keeping a low profile for now is the best course of action, and I suspect that is how Eugenie will spend her birthday: out of public view and certainly not openly with either of her parents,” she said.
The sisters have not spoken about their father’s association with Jeffrey Epstein or Andrew's arrest, but the Sun’s royal editor, Matt Wilkinson, said Beatrice and Eugenie are “probably going through a complete and utter personal crisis.”
In an episode of Hello! magazine’s “A Right Royal Podcast,” Wilkinson said, “I've got sympathy for both Beatrice and Eugenie, and I'd like to see them somehow rehabilitated and used properly in the Royal Family. I think The King wants her, wants them both, to not pay for the sins of their parents, but I'm not sure there is mass public sympathy for them at the moment.”
