Prince Andrew...Jeffrey Epstein's Useful Idiot

Jeffrey Epstein reportedly regarded Prince Andrew as useful precisely because Andrew’s royal status opened doors that Epstein could not have opened as easily on his own. Royal biographer Tina Brown wrote that Epstein confided to a friend that he viewed Andrew as an “idiot,” but a useful one, because traveling with the Duke of York gave Epstein access to governments, political leaders and business figures who were effectively obliged to receive a senior British royal. Brown said Epstein would accompany Andrew on foreign trips as an investment adviser, using the prince as a kind of frontman while pursuing business opportunities and cultivating powerful contacts. Later biographer Andrew Lownie reached a similar conclusion, describing Andrew as a “useful idiot” who gave Epstein respectability, political access and commercial opportunities while being relatively easy for Epstein to manipulate.

The phrase therefore captured the transactional nature critics believe sat beneath their friendship. Andrew gained access to Epstein’s moneyed world of private jets, wealthy contacts, parties and luxury, while Epstein gained something even harder to buy outright: the legitimacy and access that came from being seen alongside a member of the British royal family. Photographs later showed Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell enjoying extraordinary proximity to royal life, including appearances with Andrew at Ascot and around royal estates. There is an important distinction, however: the best-documented claim that Epstein himself called Andrew an “idiot” comes from Tina Brown’s account of what Epstein allegedly told a friend, while the exact phrase “useful idiot” was also used by Brown and Lownie as their characterization of how Epstein exploited him. Either way, the underlying allegation was the same: Epstein saw Andrew not merely as a friend, but as a valuable passport into circles of power and influence.


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