[imagesource: Jae Donnelly]

When it rain, it pours.

Or, when you pal around with convicted paedophiles for years and stand accused of sleeping with an underage girl, eventually it comes back to bite you in the arse.

Over the weekend, Prince Andrew’s BBC interview was aired, and it’s safe to say that the palace source who warned it would “go down as one of the single worst PR moves in recent history” was on the money.

A complete lack of remorse, playing the victim card, a truly bizarre story about his inability to sweat and a trip to Pizza Express – catch up here if you missed all of that.

So, what could top the nightmare interview? Let’s start with accusations that Prince Andrew tosses around the n-word via the Guardian:

The claim was made by Rohan Silva, a former aide to David Cameron, who met the prince at Buckingham Palace in 2012.

Silva asked the Queen’s son whether the government department responsible for trade “could be doing a better job”, according to the Evening Standard.

He claims the prince responded: “Well, if you’ll pardon the expression, that really is the [N-word] in the woodpile.”

Buckingham Palace has denied the claim, but at this stage, it’s open season on the Duke of York.

By the way, the phrase refers to slaves attempting to hide in piles of wood while fleeing, which morphed into a phrase meaning an “unknown factor affecting a situation in an adverse way”.

Silva also claimed that Andrew once used the phrase “What you have got to remember is that you’ll never get anywhere by playing the white man,” which also carries negative connotations.

Fresh off that disastrous interview, accounting giant KPMG (a company not averse to controversy) is not renewing its sponsorship of Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace initiative, and others may soon follow suit.

To pile on the pressure, there’s now a mountain of new allegations against Jeffrey Epstein, which names Andrew directly, reports the Telegraph:

A US judge will decide before the end of the year whether to unseal more than 3,000 pages of new evidence about Epstein’s alleged crimes. The documents include depositions from 29 people, including a number of new witnesses and Epstein himself.

Hundreds of people named in the new documents will be formally notified before the end of the year to give them a chance to respond to the allegations. The Duke’s name appears in the evidence along with a number of prominent politicians and businessmen, it is understood.

According to court records the sealed documents refer to “a range of allegations of sexual acts involving Plaintiff (Ms Giuffre Roberts) and non-parties to this litigation, some famous, some not; the identities of non-parties who either allegedly engaged in sexual acts with Plaintiff or who allegedly facilitated such acts.”

Throughout this entire case, Andrew has repeatedly denied any and all wrongdoing, admitting only to slight lapses in judgement along the way.

During the BBC interview, he often portrayed himself as the victim, and trying to lead viewers to believe that he has always acted out of a sense of decency.

He also shot down Emily Maitlis, Newsnight’s host, when asked about his reputation as “the party prince”, saying “I don’t know why I’ve collected that title because I don’t … I never have really partied”.

Just the one problem with that, Andrew. You were nicknamed ‘Randy Andy’ and ‘the playboy prince’ way back in the day, and those were titles well-earned.

Again from the Guardian:

In his youth, though, partying was what second sons were expected to do. As Alan Rusbridger put it in 1986, “that is the problem with being the younger brother of the heir to the British throne. The press can, on the whole, think of only one interesting thing about you, and that is who you go out with/are destined to marry.”

…“he very quickly went from being a sort of bachelor prince to being somebody who has no use, no purpose, spends money too obviously, takes too many flights, gets his bad nickname, gets married, gets divorced. He went from being the golden prince to being the embarrassing uncle in a series of very inevitable steps. And that was before he became as embarrassing as he is now.”

He really, truly, is an absolute embarrassment to the Royal Family, and that takes some doing.

There are rumours that once the Queen passes on, and Prince Charles ascends to the throne, he may be hung out to dry.

Clearly, that won’t be a moment too soon.

[sources:guardian&telegraph&guardian]