Prince Andrew accused of using N-word in meeting just days after BBC interview
Prince Andrew has been accused of using the “n-word” in a meeting at Buckingham Palace with a Downing Street adviser who is of Sri Lankan descent.
Tech founder and adviser Rohan Silva was a key economic aide for former British Prime Minister David Cameron. Silva claims that the Duke of York used the word during a meeting in which Silva raised a question about the Department of Trade.
Mr Silva said Prince Andrew responded: “Well, if you’ll pardon the expression, that really is the n***** in the woodpile.”
“I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t do anything about it — I felt overawed and extremely conscious of the gulf in status between the two of us. The meeting ended shortly afterwards, and I remember distinctly how I walked blinking into the sunshine outside Buckingham Palace, reeling at the prince’s use of language,” Mr Silva wrote in the London Evening Standard.
Palace sources have denied Prince Andrew used the phrase.
It comes as the Duke of York is facing calls to submit to questioning by US authorities under oath over his friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Duke of York took part in a hour-long interview with BBC Newsnight in which he said he did not regret his friendship with Epstein and denied having met or had sex with Virginia Roberts.
He also defended his decision to invite Jeffrey Epstein to Princess Beatrice’s 18th birthday and said he could not have had sex with Roberts on the night she alleged because he was at a pizza restaurant in Woking.
Spencer Kuvin, a lawyer for three of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged victims said that it was “depressing” that Prince Andrew did not seem to grasp the victims’ perspective.
"A man that has been to all three of Epstein’s homes can’t avoid seeing what had been going on in those homes and girls being shuttled in and out,” he told the BBC’s Today show.
“It’s sad that powerful, wealthy and influential people are not owning up to their responsibilities with respect to the victims that are out there."
"The mere fact that he was friends with a convicted sex offender and chose to continue his relationship with him – it just shows a lack of acknowledgment of the breadth of what this man [Epstein] did to these girls," he said.
"The government has failed them, the prosecutors have failed them, the US Attorney's Office has failed them, the politicians have failed them – now royalty has failed them.”
"It's just by now empty promises. So, unfortunately they're not very hopeful but they will continue the fight."