Will Beatrice and Eugenie be dragged into the Epstein scandal?

“To have one parent mired in scandal is unfortunate,” said Joy Lo Dico in The Independent. “To have two? This is where the luckless Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice now find themselves.”

If it wasn’t bad enough that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor used Beatrice’s Pizza Express birthday party in Woking as an alibi against Virginia Giuffre’s accusations in his infamous “Newsnight” interview back in 2019, matters have now been made worse by their mother. In the latest slew of Epstein emails, Sarah Ferguson has hit the headlines for taking Beatrice and Eugenie (then aged 19 and 20) to meet the disgraced financier in Miami, just days after he had been released from prison for his conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution. But should the princesses have stayed at home and “declined their mother’s invitation”?

‘Excruciating’ exchanges

The “incomprehensively misjudged” meeting is not the only time the princesses have been “dragged into the quagmire of disgrace that Epstein has come to embody”, said Rosa Silverman in The Telegraph. Their names appear in the files several times, in incidents that will likely bring them “varying degrees of embarrassment”. The most “excruciating” is an email from “Sarah” telling Epstein she is “waiting for Eugenie to come back from a shagging weekend!!”

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While there is no evidence of Beatrice and Eugenie doing anything wrong, there is a “strong suggestion” that the princesses were “used as pawns in their parents’ unedifying quest to curry favour with the wealthy Epstein”. Ferguson’s motivations are not “hard to fathom”; other emails reveal her telling the financier she “urgently” needed £20,000 to pay her rent, and in a “particularly desperate exchange” offering to work for Epstein “organising your houses”.

There will be a degree of “sympathy for the daughters” for being drawn into the scandal. But there’s “no doubt whatever that they should have refused to be part of their mother’s [actions]”, royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told the publication.

That the princesses should have to answer for their parents’ mistakes is “deeply unfair and wholly undeserved”, said Alexander Larman in The Spectator. However, it is inevitable that “interest is going to alight on them”. The pair have already faced criticism over everything from their looks to their privileges and jobs. Now they will be asked what they knew. “A pile-on towards these young women is coming, and it will be brutal.”

Mounting pressure

Beatrice and Eugenie are “sitting on a ticking time bomb”, said Tessa Dunlop in The i Paper. Public opinion is clear that it is “unforgivable to maintain friendly communication with a convicted paedophile”. But things are murkier when the “villains of the piece are your father and mother”. The princesses refrained from commenting following their father’s disastrous “Newsnight” interview, but the “pressure has mounted” as the scandal has intensified. Despite their parents’ sins, “few would expect either princess to entirely renounce their dad”.

It seems the sisters are “taking different positions”, said Isaac Bickerstaff in Tatler. Beatrice was spotted on a horse ride with Andrew last week before the latest files were released, and invited her parents to the christening of her daughter in December (though they were both absent from the pub afterwards). However Eugenie is said to have stopped seeing her father altogether. “It’s Brooklyn Beckham level – she has completely cut him off,” a source told The Mail on Sunday.

“Who could blame them at this point for doing a full Jeremy Kyle and ditching their parents publicly?” asked Lo Dico in The Independent. Estrangement from the royal family isn’t easy, though. Attempts to create some distance by the likes of Prince Harry have been met with accusations of “betraying the great traditions of the family”.

The “wisest” course would be for the princesses to renounce their titles, “retire from public life, run their charities and bring up their families”, Andrew Lownie, author of “Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York” told The Telegraph. Beatrice and Eugenie “may yet retain their dignity despite their parents’ downfall”. For others in the disgraced financier’s sphere, “it is surely too late”.