Can a British royal prince be “canceled” in today’s modern cancel culture?
Yes, he can, more or less, especially if he’s doing it himself and with Queen Elizabeth II’s approval.
Prince Andrew, 59, the queen’s second son, announced Wednesday he’s stepping away from his royal duties “for the foreseeable future” due to continuing controversy over his former friendship with convicted American sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Assuming this becomes permanent, it means Andrew is retiring from public life decades earlier than his father, Prince Philip, 98, who only retired in 2017, tweeted longtime royal commentator Victoria Arbiter.”
Prince Andrew is ‘stepping down’ in response to a wave of self-induced scandal & poor choices but it’s extraordinary to think he’s effectively retiring from royal life 37 years before his father did,” Arbiter posted on Twitter.Jeffrey Epstein fallout: Prince Andrew to ‘step back from public duties’
Will this be enough to quell the furies railing against Andrew in the wake of his car-wreck BBC interview in which he attempted to explain why he remained friends with Epstein long after Epstein pleaded guilty to sex crimes in Florida in 2008?And will Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the woman who says she was forced by Epstein to have sex with Andrew when she was 17, be satisfied with Andrew’s disappearance from his public royal life? It’s not entirely clear yet but recent history in the post-#MeToo era suggests the answer to those questions is probably no.
Andrew continues to deny he had sex or any relationship with Giuffre. He said he doesn’t remember even meeting her, despite a picture of the two, he with his arm around her waist, that has been floating around the internet since at least 2011.
Certainly there is not much precedent, at least not in the modern era, for what Andrew has done here: It’s a rare acknowledgment that a high-ranking royal’s behavior warrants at least temporary suspension of royal duties and a split from his patronage of charities and other royal good works. It’s also a humiliating acknowledgment by Andrew of his failed attempt to plausibly explain and exonerate himself through the media.
If he thought his BBC interview would fix his Epstein mess, he was wrong, or at least wrong about his media skills.’I am with him’
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