You know how the Buckingham Palace communications office is run by amateurs and you know how the royal courtiers are just a bunch of incompetent fools? Yeah, we’re still in that f–king newscycle. Over the weekend, the palace was trying to push about twenty competing and contradictory narratives around the Duke of York’s absolutely catastrophic BBC interview. There are so many different pieces to this, and I will continue to try to separate some of the strands of incompetence so that we can highlight just how bad all of this is.

One of the stupidest parts of the weekend stories? Courtiers and PR officials burned Princess Beatrice for no real reason. The idea SHOULD be to triage the PR disaster and isolate Prince Andrew, and insulate the rest of the royals. Instead, we saw the Queen doing the most to INSULATE ANDREW, and we saw the official story become “the interview was Beatrice’s fault, she sat in on meetings with the BBC and encouraged her father to do the interview.” It was almost as if the palace was throwing her under the bus as collateral damage… but to what end? What was the purpose? Anyway, Beatrice visited her father in Windsor yesterday and they must have come up with this story, which is so obvious it hurts. Sebastian Shakespeare at the Daily Mail bought it though?

If only Prince Andrew had listened to his nearest and dearest before he went ahead with his disastrous Newsnight interview that has resulted in him stepping down from royal duties. For I can reveal that his ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York, and eldest daughter Beatrice both cautioned him against doing the programme, while his then private secretary Amanda Thirsk was more gung-ho, thinking it could offer him a chance to draw a line under his association with Jeffrey Epstein.

‘Princess Beatrice and Sarah both advised Andrew against going ahead with the interview,’ a friend claims. ‘However, he paid too much attention to Amanda, who was encouraging him, saying it would clear his name.’

This contradicts weekend reports that Sarah Ferguson and Beatrice were among the key figures pressing him to participate. It was claimed that the Duchess of York had been keen to end the speculation about Andrew’s involvement with a convicted paedophile and sex trafficker ahead of Beatrice’s wedding to property developer Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi next year. However, Fergie did not attend the meeting with the Newsnight team and was abroad when details of the interview were being finalised.

Andrew, Beatrice and Thirsk met Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis and the programme’s deputy editor, Stewart Maclean, at Buckingham Palace three days before filming to discuss the scope of the interview. A close friend of Beatrice insists she ‘wasn’t part of the decision-making process’. The pal adds: ‘Bea went to one meeting with the BBC. That’s all.’

Princess Beatrice, who hosted a party for her fiance’s 36th birthday at Mayfair nightclub Annabel’s last Tuesday, was said to be upset about the aftermath of the interview, which has seen Andrew forced to stand back from his charity patronages.

[From The Daily Mail]

So Beatrice definitely met with BBC producers as part of the discussions… but she did not offer her advice to her father at all? That’s not believable. That being said, Beatrice should understand that she’s being used as a deliberate attempt to protect the Queen from herself. The Queen’s terrible instincts to protect and insulate Andrew have all led to this: courtiers running around, smearing anyone and everyone, all as the Queen continues to show her clear favoritism towards Andrew. While we’re talking about Beatrice, we’re supposed to forget that the Queen ABSOLUTELY knew about the interview and gave her approval for it. We’re supposed to forget that the Queen did those church-ride photo-ops with Andrew all summer and fall, and that she wanted to ride out the catastrophe and support Andrew post-interview, but Charles wouldn’t let that happen. I don’t blame Beatrice for trying to do some damage control on her own, but it’s clear that the palace is perfectly willing to burn her.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red.