Prince Andrew, aged 11, inspects an armoured car at Aldershot, Hampshire. Photo / Central Press via Getty Images
The Duke of York lost his virginity at the age of 11, a new biography has alleged.
According to the book, the duke had multiple sexual experiences before he turned 13.
The experiences, detailed in a new biography of the duke and his ex-wife by Andrew Lownie, are said to have proved a formative moment, in which the young Prince Andrew “realised that he was obsessed with women”.
One source, quoted in the book, suggested that the early sexual encounters “might be the root of Andrew’s problems”, and the author said it “perhaps explains some of the behaviour later on”.
Another source, who knows the duke, told The Telegraph they were aware of Andrew previously alluding to “sexual experiences at what most of us would consider as too young an age”, and said his personal life has been “far more complex” than the public knew.
The book, entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, details Prince Andrew’s finances and sex life as an adult along with his connection to Jeffrey Epstein.
The 456 pages are described by the author as a “tale of childhood trauma, infidelity, lust, betrayal, corruption, greed, extravagance, arrogance, entitlement, establishment cover-up and hubris”.
Under a subheading of “Randy Andy”, the duke’s nickname in the tabloid press for tales of his adult love life, the book quotes an unnamed source as saying that his early sexual activity explains “why he’s spent most of his adult life at high risk of self-abuse, depression, and risky sexual encounters”.
It reads: “According to a source close to Andrew, he had his first sexual experience aged eight and lost his virginity at 11...”
The book goes on to claim, through the same source: “He admitted that his second sexual experience came before he turned 12 and when he was 13 he had already slept with more than half-a-dozen girls.
“I believe this might be the root of Andrew’s problems,” said the source.
The duke’s team did not respond to the claims when approached by The Telegraph. Nor did Buckingham Palace, which no longer officially represents the duke.
When asked about the claims, a source who knows the duke said he has previously “alluded to sexual experiences at what most of us would consider as too young an age, poor chap”.
“The duke’s personal story is far more complex than people realise or have ever been prepared to properly consider,” they added.
Lownie said he had included the claim in the book because “it seemed to me it was part of building a picture of behaviour, and how it shaped his life”.
He added: “It does perhaps explain some of the behaviour later on.
“I think he [Andrew], in some ways, has been a victim. It does make him much more sympathetic, in a way.”
The biography has been advertised as the “most devastating royal biography ever written”.
Lownie said it had been completed over four years of research and hundreds of interviews with insiders.
The book covers Andrew’s many liaisons with women as an adult, including – allegedly – “more than a dozen women” before his first anniversary of marriage to Sarah, Duchess of York.
There is a full chapter, called “Epstein”, which includes details of his friendship with the convicted paedophile financier.
In 2019, the duke stepped back from public royal duties following an interview in which he failed to express regret for the relationship and denied he had slept with Virginia Giuffre when she had been 17.
Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year, had alleged that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked her to the duke when she was 17.
The duke has denied the claims, reaching an out-of-court settlement with her in 2022. They have never been proven by law and the FBI dropped an investigation into the duke’s links to Epstein in July.
Speaking on The Daily T podcast, Lownie said there are “a lot of unanswered questions” over Epstein’s death in prison, suggesting that there are too many “extraordinary coincidences” for it to be a suicide.
Lownie also said he believed Epstein’s death “didn’t really help” Andrew, because it “shifted the focus onto Ghislaine”, who became the “sort of forewoman for the whole thing”.
However, the author does not believe that Maxwell will “dish the dirt on Andrew”, adding that he doesn’t think “much is going to change” on that front.
He also told the podcast that the duke and Epstein’s relationship was “much longer and much more intense” than what has previously been reported, and suggested that the friendship was more about money for Andrew than sex.
“In Newsnight he said it all: contacts,” Lownie said.
He added: “Of course there was money. There was money paying off his wife’s debts… they were driven by the same thing, interest in the same thing.”
The duke told Emily Maitlis in his 2019 Newsnight interview that Epstein’s “appeal” was in his ability to make “extraordinary” introductions.
“He had the most extraordinary ability to bring extraordinary people together and that’s the bit that I remember as going to the dinner parties where you would meet academics, politicians, people from the United Nations, I mean it was a cosmopolitan group of what I would describe as US eminences,” the duke said.