It's been a rocky month for Britain's Prince Andrew as court documents from the s-x trafficking trial of Jeffrey Epstein have revealed that the son of Queen Elizabeth II allegedly groped an underage girl at the New York house of the disgraced US financier. But this is only the latest scandal that the Duke of York has found himself embroiled in.
Prince Andrew remains tight-lipped about the allegations of using Virginia Roberts Giuffre as a "s-x slave" when she was a teen at Jeffrey Epstein's mansion in the 2000s, but denied them back in 2015, when the purported victim filed a lawsuit against professed procuress Ghislaine Maxwell.
At the time, his former girfriend, American actress Kathleen "Koo" Stark, broke her 32-year silence on their relationship to defend her ex-lover, saying that the accusations amounted to an "assassination of his character".
Their relationship was, in fact, scandalous, too.
Back in 1981, the Duke of York was set up on a blind date with Stark, who had been cast in Star Wars to play Luke Skywalker's friend, but her part was eventually cut out. The attraction was instant, and she would've become part of the royal family, if it were not for her "dirty" past, which, according to People, was a nightmare for the Queen.
At the age of 17, Koo starred in the film, Cruel Passion, an erotic drama, based on the novel, Justine, by the Marquis de Sade, where she played a young virgin thrust out of a French orphanage and into a depraved world of prostitution and perverse pleasures.
In 1976, she also played a young nymphet in the movie, The Awakening of Emily, which, according to reports, shocked Buckingham Palace: it featured Koo in a steamy lesbian love scene in a shower. The film became Britain's biggest-earning soft-core movie two years later.
Andrew and Koo were on a holiday on the island of Mustique in the Caribbean in 1982, when a photographer on a private trip recognised the couple and informed editors back home. Shortly thereafter, Koo was identified as a US soft-score porn actress, and her raunchy photos were splashed over newspapers' front pages.
After some outlets reported that Andrew had earlier taken Koo to meet his family at Balmoral, the Queen's Scottish castle, and potentially introduced her to his mother, Buckingham Palace broke its silence, saying, "We do not know if the Queen was aware of the girl's acting career before she was invited to Balmoral".
Andrew's mother was not there to read such headlines as, "S-x Scene Sizzlers From Andy's Girl", but she was reportedly dismayed by the X-rated occupation of her son's date.
"It is one thing for a prince to be seen with a film actress, but quite another to go away on holiday with a blue movie star. The Queen feels badly let down", a member of her staff was cited as saying, per People.
The couple called it quits in 1983, and he married Sarah Ferguson three years later. Stark later said that "the amount of attention and pressure on me became unbearable. It was a nightmare".
Despite ending their relationship, Koo jumped to the prince's defence in 2015, when he was accused of keeping an underage "s-x slave", Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
"Prince Andrew is a dear friend of mine and godfather to my daughter. I've only known him to be honourable and honest, with Christian values. I dismissed the latest story as just another s-xual slur to add to the list of criticisms of him in recent years. My first reaction was fury, then disbelief at the lurid allegations being made against a man I have known for more than 30 years", she wrote in a piece for The Mail.
The Duke of York wasn't charged with anything back in 2015, but multiple reports suggest that he may come under new scrutiny following Jeffrey Epstein's apparent suicide in his jail cell last week. According to the Daily Mail, citing an unnamed legal source, the FBI might shift their focus to Maxwell, who is said to have been friends with the royal, too.
Epstein was arrested on 6 July on multiple allegations of s-x trafficking underage girls in the early 2000s and was awaiting trial next year at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New York. He was found hanged in his cell last week a few days after he was taken off suicide watch following a suspected suicide attempt in mid-July.
