Key takeaways from explosive claims made in biography of Prince Andrew

 

Explainer

Key takeaways from explosive claims made in biography of Prince Andrew

Andrew Lownie’s book explores Duke of York’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, his relationships and finances

 

Caroline Davies

Wed 6 Aug 2025 15.42 CEST

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/06/key-takeaways-from-explosive-claims-made-in-biography-on-prince-andrew

 

A new biography claims startling insight into the private lives of the Duke of York and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson. From relationships with women to Andrew’s mysterious finances, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, by the historian Andrew Lownie, also dives into the prince’s ill-advised friendship with the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew’s representatives were contacted for comment.

 

Claims from the extracts serialised in the Daily Mail include:

 

1. Andrew and Epstein

Lownie claims that, although Andrew claimed to have met Epstein in 1999, “the truth is he and his ex-wife Sarah had known the financier for almost a decade by then”. Lownie writes Andrew “was easy prey for a rattlesnake like Epstein”, and adds: “Epstein played Andrew. The prince was a useful idiot who gave him respectability, access to political leaders and business opportunities. He found him easy to exploit.” Lownie quotes the US businessman Steven Hoffenberg, said to be Epstein’s “mentor” and a convicted fraudster, as saying Andrew was his “Super Bowl trophy”.

 

2. Secrets passed to foreign officials

Compromising material on Andrew may allegedly have been passed to Israel’s Mossad secret service, Saudi Arabian authorities and Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan intelligence services by Epstein, according to the book. Lownie credits a documentary by the Canadian journalist Ian Halperin, writing the claims were “confirmed” to Halperin by “many in Andrew’s circle”. Although some of Epstein’s victims have alleged the financier kept video recordings of high-profile friends having sex with women, no proof has been made public to date. The claim Epstein boasted of planning to sell Andrew’s secrets to the Mossad, first reported by the US Sun, was made by Hoffenberg.

 

3. Was Putin passed Andrew material?

Compromising material on Andrew may also have ended up in Russian hands, Lownie claims. He examines British intelligence fears, first reported by the Sunday Times, that John Mark Dougan, a former deputy in Palm Beach county sheriff’s office, fled to Russia with copies of files on the Epstein investigation and was in touch with Pavel Borodin, a “mentor” of Putin. Lownie writes: “Asked what might be in the files, Dougan said: ‘Lots of videos, but I wasn’t going to sit around and watch them. Also lots of scanned documents.’” Dougan, a former US marine, has previously been described by the BBC as spreading a number of disinformation claims from Russia.

 

4. Harry, Meghan and Andrew

According to Lownie, Prince Harry gave Andrew a “bloody nose” during a heated argument at a 2013 family gathering. This has been denied by Harry. Another allegation that Andrew made disparaging remarks to Harry about how long his marriage to Meghan Markle would last was also denied. A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan said: “I can confirm Prince Harry and Prince Andrew have never had a physical fight, nor did Prince Andrew ever make the comments he is alleged to have made about the Duchess of Sussex to Prince Harry.” The spokesperson confirmed a legal letter from Prince Harry’s counsel had been sent to the Mail.

 

In 2021, after Meghan was accused of bullying staff, which she has denied, Lownie also claims: “Buckingham Palace braced itself for historic complaints about Prince Andrew’s bullying, profanities and impossible demands. Some say a report on bullying accusations against Meghan Markle has never been released because it would also raise questions about the behaviour of the queen’s second son.”

 

5. Mysterious finances

With no obvious source of income beyond his Royal Navy pension, family money he may have inherited and handouts “first from the queen and now King Charles”, Lownie questions how Andrew can afford the 30-room Royal Lodge, which he spent £7.5m refurbishing and which has annual running costs of about £250,000.

 

He revisits how £750,000 from Turkish millionaire Nebahat Isbilen ended up in Andrew’s Coutts account, according to 2022 high court papers from an action between Isbilen and her banker, Selman Turk, for misuse of funds. Andrew’s office described it as a gift for Princess Beatrice’s wedding, but it was later repaid. Andrew’s holiday to Tunisia with the convicted Libyan gun-smuggler, Tarek Kaituni, who is also said to have presented Beatrice with an £18,000 solitaire diamond necklace for her 21st birthday, are among several allegedly questionable relationships examined in the book.

 

6. Personal life

There are various eye-popping claims about Andrew’s sex life, as well as stories alleging a vulgar sense of humour. One claim is that more than 40 women were brought to his hotel room during a stay in Bangkok. “Hotel staff were used to foreigners bringing in girls, but amazed that more than 10 a day were going to Andrew’s room,” Lownie writes. As to claims over bullying, the book makes many, including that of Andrew calling a palace staff member a “fucking imbecile” for not referring to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother by her full title.

Up on the Roof, Trump Surveys the Home He’s Making His Own

 

Up on the Roof, Trump Surveys the Home He’s Making His Own

 

White House reporters looked up from the driveway to see a familiar figure in a most unfamiliar location.

 

Katie Rogers

By Katie Rogers

Katie Rogers is a White House reporter. She reported from Washington.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/us/politics/trump-white-house-stroll.html

Aug. 5, 2025

 

President Trump was on the roof.

 

As a confused group of reporters assembled below him on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump strolled around on top of the White House, stopping somewhere above the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room — now only occasionally a venue for taking questions — to tell his audience that he was “taking a little walk” in service of his latest home improvement project: a large ballroom.

 

“It’s just another way to spend my money for the country,” Mr. Trump shouted. He was getting a bird’s-eye view of where the $200 million White House ballroom he has proposed building would go, according to the White House.

 

The president ignored follow-up questions — one reporter shouted “WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?” after the president appeared to be making a circular gesture with his arms and hands and saying “something beautiful.” Mr. Trump did not answer before continuing a 20-minute walkabout that included standing on the roof near the Oval Office to survey the newly paved Rose Garden.

 

What looked like a casual stroll was actually a heavily secured appearance: The area around the building was locked down and Secret Service agents, including members of the agency’s counter-sniper team, accompanied Mr. Trump on his walk.

 

The construction of a ballroom is not the most pressing issue facing Mr. Trump or his fellow Republicans, but it’s a pretty good distraction. (Several conservative lawmakers are spending their August recesses either avoiding constituents in their districts or getting screamed at over the economically damaging details of domestic policy legislation that Mr. Trump pressured Republicans to ram through Congress.)

 

It appears that Mr. Trump’s respite from the tumult — some of which he has wrought — is to ensconce himself in a White House that is rapidly changing from the taxpayer-funded people’s house to one that resembles one of the Louis XIV-inspired properties in his portfolio.

 

On social media, Mr. Trump has referred to these as “‘fun’ projects I do while thinking about the World Economy, the United States, China, Russia, and lots of other Countries, places, and events.”

 

In that vein, Mr. Trump, a creature of habit, has occupied himself by festooning the Oval Office with golden embellishments, urns, baskets and coasters embossed with his last name. He has planted large American flags on the lawn.

 

During Mr. Trump’s first term, he spent quite a bit of time at the Trump International Hotel, holding court for family members, prominent conservatives and journalists. But now, with the hotel closed, he appears to be using the White House for a similar purpose.

 

Mr. Trump remains a homebody with a deep distrust of situations he does not control. Lately, he has turned his attention away from holding rallies or public events to gin up political support and toward the altering of a White House complex he has in turns complimented as grand and maligned as outdated. Visitors are still allowed on tours, and there is no mistaking who lives upstairs.

 

He has overseen the paving over of the Rose Garden, a historic presidential venue that Melania Trump, the first lady, had once revamped with the help of historians, architects and designers. At her direction, they replanted roses, removed several problematic crab apple trees that had bedeviled designers since the Reagan administration and installed a limestone walkway.

 

In 2020, Mrs. Trump also oversaw the installation of the first piece of art from an Asian American artist to be included in the White House collection. That statue is no longer in the Rose Garden. A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to not disclose internal plans, said that the piece was being polished. But the official did not know when or if it would be returned to the newly paved garden.

 

On Tuesday, the East Wing did not respond to a request for comment about whether the first lady supported the changes to a project that took a year and a half to design and revamp, and just days to partially pave over. Other questions, including one about what would become of a suite of East Wing offices that appear to be in the way of the proposed ballroom, were forwarded to the West Wing.

 

And most recently, there is the ballroom, the rendering of which has a distinct resemblance to the event space at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, his gilded fortress in Palm Beach. The Mar-a-Lago ballroom has long been a space for fund-raisers, dinners and weddings, and its patio is where Mr. Trump enjoys a round of applause before taking his seat at dinner. The people who assemble there have paid for the privilege of an event where Mr. Trump appears as either the de facto maître d’ or the centerpiece the party revolves around.

 

In the Trump White House, people who have given money to the president’s cryptocurrency business have been invited for dinner. Questions about who is funding the ballroom, however, are mostly unanswered. White House officials said the president and “other patriot donors” would pay for the renovations, but declined to give details.

 

Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, said the donor funding plan was “highly unusual.”

 

“There is certainly a risk that donors to this project, which Donald Trump has made clear is important to him, could see it as a way to curry favor with the administration,” he said.

 

During his walkabout on Tuesday, Mr. Trump seemed to say he would be paying for the 90,000-square-foot project, which is almost twice the size of the White House residence.

 

“Anything I do is financed by me; in other words, contributed,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “Just like my salary is contributed. But nobody ever mentions that.”

 

And now, a quick fact check: Mr. Trump’s first-term White House announced that he partially donated his salary to agencies, including the Department of Education. But his donations declined over the course of his first term, and he reported no charitable giving in 2020, according to his tax returns. The White House did not respond to a request for comment about how he planned to donate his salary this year.

 

Maggie Haberman and Doug Mills contributed reporting.

Trump forges ahead with White House renovation as experts flag concerns.

 

Ashley Ahn

Aug. 3, 2025, 5:59 a.m. ETAug. 3, 2025

Ashley Ahn

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08/03/us/trump-news#trump-white-house-ballroom-renovations-concerns

 

Trump forges ahead with White House renovation as experts flag concerns.

 

Experts on historic preservation are raising concerns over the feasibility of President Trump’s plans to complete large-scale renovations to the White House by the end of his term, and whether the project can be done while respecting the historic nature of the building.

 

Mr. Trump unveiled plans on Thursday to construct a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot state ballroom off the East Wing to be completed “long before” the end of his term in 2029. The project would be one of the largest renovations to the iconic building in decades.

 

Mr. Trump has been on a winning streak this summer, emerging victorious in a series of Supreme Court rulings, signing a massive bill to carry out his domestic policy agenda and winning concessions from some of America’s top trading partners. Now, by checking off a long-sought item on his list of pet projects, Mr. Trump is showing that he apparently feels emboldened to continue flexing his presidential power.

 

The White House, the Supreme Court building, the Capitol and all their “related buildings and grounds” are exempt from the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, which requires federal agencies to assess and mitigate adverse effects to historic properties and seek consultation through a formal review process.

 

Instead, the White House has its own committee that provides advice on the “preservation and the interpretation of the museum character” of the building. The Committee for the Preservation of the White House — chaired by the director of the National Park Service — is made up of several federal officials and a number of members appointed by the president.

 

Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, said on Thursday in a news release that the administration was “fully committed to working with the appropriate organizations to preserving the special history of the White House.”

 

Still, the committee’s recommendations are not binding, giving the president significant leeway to do as he wishes. “In most cases, you’re not going to have a lot of binding obligations to historic buildings,” said Michael Spencer, a professor of historic preservation at the University of Mary Washington.

 

The sheer scale of the project — a giant ballroom attached to the East Wing — worries preservationists. “It could do some harm to the property over all,” said Richard Longstreth, a professor of American studies at George Washington University. “There aren’t any checks and balances here, unfortunately.”

 

Mr. Spencer said his expectations on preservation were “pretty low.”

 

“We’re oftentimes viewed as getting in the way of progress, and I would say in this particular instance, you’ve got a lot of strong personalities and they’re under no obligation to really follow best practices as preservation puts forth,” he said.

 

Jonathan Jarvis, former director of the National Park Service, which is responsible for the upkeep of the White House and its grounds, said any additions made to the White House must follow the architectural design of the building. “You couldn’t put something on the side of the building that doesn’t match it historically in terms of its architecture, coloration and style,” he said.

 

He cast doubt on the timeline the Trump administration proposed, calling its plans to finish a project of this scale by the end of Mr. Trump’s term “optimistic.”

 

“You don’t see one of those projects go that fast,” he said. “It’ll be a rush to get it done.”

 

Mr. Jarvis, who was the director of the National Park Service from 2009 to 2017, said construction at the White House is a “complicated process” because it is “not just normal construction.”

 

“It’s the White House — it has to survive a terrorist attack,” he said. He added that every step of the process would need to be evaluated to ensure that nothing “is being compromised architecturally or from a security standpoint.”

 

Stewart D. McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association, said the White House has gone through numerous changes to its interior and exterior since the cornerstone was laid in 1792, and many of them faced resistance. He said many of those changes made the White House what it is today.

 

“The South Portico, the North Portico, the East Wing, the West Wing and the Truman Balcony all raised concerns at the time — but today, we can’t imagine the White House without these iconic elements,” he said.

 

It remains unclear whether the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, which works in tandem with the White House Historical Association, has provided recommendations or raised concerns about Mr. Trump’s ballroom. A spokeswoman for the historical association, Jessica Fredericks, did not respond to questions about the committee’s position on the project.

 

In addition to the director of the National Park Service, the committee is composed of representatives from the White House, the Smithsonian Institution, the Commission of Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Art and a handful of presidential appointees.

 

Mr. Trump has not nominated a park service director, a position that requires Senate confirmation, or announced the appointments of individuals to serve on the committee. The terms of 13 individuals that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. appointed to the committee in 2023 expired when Mr. Trump began his second term, according to a government database. Jessica Bowron, the comptroller of the National Park Service, is currently serving as its acting director.

 

The president tapped McCrery Architects as the lead architect of the project. James McCrery, the company’s founding principal architect, was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2019 to serve a four-year term on the Commission of Fine Arts. He called the ballroom a necessary addition to the White House, where presidents have “faced challenges hosting major events.”

 

Mr. McCrery said he would preserve “the elegance of its classical design and historical importance” of the White House.

 

Questions about who is funding the project are also still largely unanswered. White House officials said the president and “other patriot donors” would pay for the renovations but declined to give details.

 

When asked on Friday if he would block foreign donations, Mr. Trump said he had not thought about it: “I’m not looking for that. You have very strong restrictions. And we go by the restrictions.”

 

Still, Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who specializes in government ethics, called the lack of transparency “completely outrageous.” She questioned whether the donors were seeking “ways to get in good with Trump.”

 

“He feels emboldened,” she said. “He feels like he can do anything.”

 

Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.

Inside King Charles's personal art collection | The Royals

Norman Cornish obituary

Seven Norman Cornish paintings realise about £47,000 when they fall under hammer

22nd June 2013

Tyne And Wear

By Gavin Engelbrecht

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/local/northdurham/10502057.Seven_Norman_Cornish_paintings_realise_about___47_000_when_they_fall_under_hammer/

 

SEVEN works by celebrated County Durham mining artist Norman Cornish realised about £47,000 when they fell under the hammer this week.

 

Among the pieces up for sale at the Anderson and Garland auction house in Newcastle were several examples of the Spennymoor artist's much-sought-after early work, including the pastel painting Colliery At Night: Pit Road, which was sold for £12,200.

 

A Man And His Dog, expected to reach £9,000, went for £12,000, while pen and watercolour of A Spennymoor Back Street, realised £8,600.

 

Three of the paintings came from The Stone Gallery in Newcastle, where Cornish was first discovered.

 

The auction house’s print and pictures expert, John Bullock-Anderson said: “The sale went really well. “It was good to get more than £10,000 for a couple of the paintings.

 

“They were good examples from the early1970s. I don’t think there is any doubt that Norman Cornish is the only claimant to the crown – greatest living North-East artist.”

 

Only one of the works did not sell.

This article is more than 10 years old

Obituary

Norman Cornish obituary

Pit painter with an acute eye and warmth of feeling for the realities of colliery life

Michael McNay

Mon 4 Aug 2014 18.11 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/aug/04/norman-cornish

 

Norman Cornish, who has died aged 94, was the most famous of the numerous group of pit painters. Sid Chaplin, the novelist from the Durham railway town of Shildon and Cornish's contemporary, once described him in this paper as a "mystic with a total grasp of what makes matter vibrate, from coal to colliery rows, from the workings 1,500ft below ground to the bus stop and the chapel at the end of the street. In himself as well as in his work a prime example of being with it and staying with it".

 

Cornish had no choice other than to stay with it. Before he was a painter he was a miner, a preordained job for anybody born as he was in Spennymoor, a dozen miles north of Shildon and one of the small colliery towns among a congeries of others such as Ferryhill, Crook and Willington in the coal-heavy triangle between the A1 and the A67 routes in Co Durham northwards to Scotland.

 

Fewer than 100 years before Cornish's birth the nascent south Durham coal industry determined the foundation of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, financed by Joseph Pease, the Quaker businessman, so that instead of coals to Newcastle he would have a more efficient means of transport than canals from the group of pits that included Spennymoor to the new Teesmouth terminal of Middlesbrough. Pease made his fortune and shaped the destiny of generations of youngsters.

 

So, every morning at dawn from the age of 14, Cornish, like his father, hurtled downwards crammed into a pit cage to his job at the Dean and Chapter colliery (the butcher's shop, as it was known), hewing at the coal face, emerging to paint in his spare time with the Spenny moor Settlement, a cut-down cultural variant of the American New Deal. "I was to learn that the dangers of gas, stone falls, the darkness and the restricted space, were all to shape these men into industrial gladiators," he wrote in his autobiography, A Slice of Life (1989).

 

As with LS Lowry from the Manchester industrial conurbation, and Sheila Fell from the Cumbrian pit village of Aspatria, Cornish was formed by his environment. There was one crucial difference: the debt-collector Lowry, for all his appearance of naivety, and Fell, daughter of a miner, were art-school products. Indeed the St Martin's-trained Fell, in what seemed to her to be her media breakthrough, being featured in 1963 on Huw Wheldon's BBC arts programme, Monitor (directed by the young Melvyn Bragg), was indignant to find that she was yoked together with the little known part-timer Cornish, as examples of that oddity, a northerner; in his case one of the 90% of Spennymoor's 25,000 inhabitants who grew up in a tied house without a lavatory or bathroom.

 

If that is how she felt, there is little wonder that in the schismatic world of London galleries, where the battles were fought over a Paris-New York axis, writers found themselves having to cope with painters digging deep into the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They just didn't fit; even now, Lowry, after his posthumous retrospective at Tate Britain last year, is filed under "much loved".

 

Much-loved Cornish was 33 years down the mines before the attrition of swinging a pick in a confined space made the pain in his back unendurable. It was 1966 and he had doubts about making a living from painting, but his wife, Sarah, told him she would cope with what little they had and that anyway he would make it.

 

He already had foundations. In 1946 he had had a first solo exhibition at the People's Theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne, and in late 1959 he held his first show at the enterprising Mick and Tilly Marshall's Stone Gallery, also in Newcastle but with nationwide connections. In 1962 he executed a 30ft mural for the new county hall in Durham. In 1974 Newcastle University awarded him an honorary MA. His shows were confined mostly to Co Durham and Northumberland until the last few years, when a series at Kings Place Gallery, King's Cross, with its direct connection to Newcastle and its link with the University Gallery at Northumbria University, put on a sequence of shows. One is running now at Kings Place until 22 August.

 

His virtues remain the dexterity of hand and acute eye of a fine illustrator and a warmth of feeling (and colour) for the community of which he was part, men shuffling to the pithead through a grey dawn, or under the colliery's hellish and sulphurous outdoor lighting, or again, heads together at a pub bar, chuckling. He was great with the colour of a pint of bitter.

 

A comparison with Josef Herman, a non-miner whose powerful paintings of Welsh miners fix the essence of man at work, throw into relief the different achievements. Cornish paints working men, not a totem of working man. He becomes a poor copyist when he tries to harness the qualities of Van Gogh or Edvard Münch. Art with a capital A was not his medium, but his lower-case, flat-cap art is now part of history. Like the collieries – and the flat caps.

 

He is survived by Sarah and their two children, John and Ann.

 

 Norman Cornish, miner and painter, born 18 November 1919; died 1 August 2014

 

 This article was amended on 5 August 2014. An earlier version said Sid Chaplin came from Stanley; that has been corrected to Shildon. It also said Sheila Fell trained at the Chelsea School of Art; that has been corrected to St Martin's.

REMEMBERING 2023 | Polo Ralph Lauren | Polo Originals Fall/Winter 2023 Collection

The Hand-Painted Leather Cafe Racing Jacket was inspired by a jacket from Mr. Lauren’s personal wardrobe. It is carefully hand-distressed and treated with a crackle effect to emulate a cyclist’s wear. Each one is individually painted by artisans with signature graphics that nod to the advertisements that were emblazoned on classic café-racing apparel.

Ralph Lauren presents the Polo Originals Fall/Winter 2023 Collection

2 October 2023

By Tricia Oliviera

https://senatus.net/article/ralph-lauren-presents-polo-originals-fallwinter-2023-collection/

 

The Fall-Winter 2023-24 season's offerings from the Polo Ralph Lauren Originals collection seamlessly blends quality craftsmanship with understated elegance.

 

Drawing inspiration from the illustrious history of English motorsport and academia, the collection features a selection of enduring styles rooted in the exquisite craftsmanship of carefully curated fabrics.

 

Key styles include the Camo Oilcloth Jacket, a reimagined silhouette of a vintage motorcycle jacket from the Ralph Lauren archive crafted from British Millerain® oilcloth fabric. In a handheld, multistep process, the camo-print cloth is coated and washed to subtly reveal its pattern. Mixed-media patches that reference traditional racing apparel are updated with logo graphics for a time-honored look that’s distinctly Polo. The Asymmetrical Oilcloth jacket draws inspiration from an archival Ralph Lauren piece, featuring authentic racing details that include quilted piecing for extra protection and vintage-inspired racing pins. Also crafted with British Millerain® oilcloth, the fabric is woven from cotton and coated with a layer of wax.

 

The Hand-Painted Leather Cafe Racing Jacket was inspired by a jacket from Mr. Lauren’s personal wardrobe. It is carefully hand-distressed and treated with a crackle effect to emulate a cyclist’s wear. Each one is individually painted by artisans with signature graphics that nod to the advertisements that were emblazoned on classic café-racing apparel.

 

Classic Polo Ralph Lauren pieces are also prominent in this collection, from Fair Isle Sweaters featuring intricate patterns made of 13 unique yarns in rich seasonal colors to The Greatcoat, a Polo staple. The oversized coat with subtle purple overcheck is another style that was re-imagined from Mr. Lauren’s personal vintage wardrobe.

 

 Shot by renowned photographer, Richard Phibbs, the campaign was captured amongst the buzzing pit lane of the iconic Goodwood Motor Circuit racetrack, to the serene backroads of the English countryside.

 

The images were inspired by the early days of Grand Prix history when racing gear, classic workwear, and finely made tweeds were worn by those who started the legacy of motorsport.

 

The campaign will be brought to life over the course of three days at the Goodwood Revival festival through physical and phygical amplifications.

From Party Prince To Epstein's Handler: Prince Andrew's Downfall