Prince Andrew’s former crisis manager has said he regrets telling an undercover journalist the royal “was f****** underage girls.”
Virginia Giuffre said in a New York lawsuit that Jeffrey Epstein had trafficked her to London, New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands to have sex with the royal. He denies the allegations but settled out of court in 2022 for a substantial sum without admitting liability.
That same year, confidant John Bryan told the Daily Mail Andrew was innocent and the victim of Epstein’s manipulation but he was recently recorded by Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe’s media company saying the prince “lied” about “f****** underage girls.”
Now though, he has gone on Piers Morgan Uncensored in an effort to retract the remarks.
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Who is John Bryan?
Bryan was perhaps most famous for a tabloid scandal in which he was photographed kissing Sarah Ferguson’s feet.
“Fergie,” as she was known in Britain, was separated from Andrew at the time but not yet divorced. The saga is widely felt to have damaged her relationship with the wider royal family, though she has remained friends with Andrew.
What Bryan told James O’Keefe’s Team About Prince Andrew
“Yeah, I knew he [Andrew] saw him [Epstein],” Bryan said. “But he lied to me that he was such a close friend. Then I did a big thing in the Daily Mail saying that I believed Andrew. And then I found out he was lying. I was so p*****.”
The undercover reporter asked: “Lying about what? Screwing underage girls?”
“That he was f****** underage girls,” Bryan replied. “That’s not cool.”
Elsewhere in the footage, he said he and Fergie fell in love with each other while Prince Andrew was away serving in the Royal Navy and claimed he effectively raised the royal’s daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.
What John Bryan Said on Piers Morgan Uncensored
“I regret saying it,” Bryan said. “It was absolutely not what I believe, and we can go over every word of what I don’t believe, but the fact is, I apologize for having said it and I shouldn’t have, and it’s not what I believe, and it’s not what I have researched and done my own due diligence on.
“And for what I know, I’ve known Andrew for a very long time, he’s a wonderful man. I think that his life for the most part, I mean, the tabloid version of what he’s accused of and everything else is absolutely unlike the person that I know.
“He was a great friend, and I have great admiration for his career, his military career, going to war for his country.”
Bryan appeared to suggest he was simply enamored with the female undercover journalist and wanted to please her: “The woman that I met was spectacular. She was interesting, fun, bright, a great actress, let’s say she’s putting on a role, but if I was a producer or director, I’d be hiring her for any acting role.
“And I think that part of the reason that I was saying these things is, I had quite a lot to drink, and I just was not speaking the truth, and I have to admit it, and I regret very much what I said, and none of it reflects what I actually believe.
“And what I was saying was stuff that was basically, you could Google anywhere in the world, and I regret it sincerely and deeply.”
“Well, I think it was much more than alcohol,” he continued. “I think that it was alcohol combined with somebody that, you know, I have to confess, I was very taken with this young lady and she … the more encouragement of negative, the negative things that she liked to hear.”
He also said he was “wrong” to suggest he raised Beatrice and Eugenie and added that Andrew was “an unbelievable role model of a father.”
Morgan also asked him about the original tabloid scandal in which he was said to have been sucking Ferguson’s toes: “Let’s be very clear, I was not sucking anybody’s toes. That’s complete exaggeration. I was kissing the toes with Eugenie sitting next to me. We were playing Cinderella.”
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek’s The Royals Facebook page.
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