Don’t mess with Randy Andy and his teddy bears.
Prince Andrew reportedly has an obsession along with his prized assortment of teddy bears, which have to be positioned in good order in his bed room.
The declare was made by royal creator Tom Quinn, who has penned a brand new e book, “Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants.” It’s primarily based on a whole bunch of interviews with former and present palace employees members.
A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace beforehand instructed Fox Information Digital that they don’t reply for the Duke of York as he’s not a working royal.
Nevertheless, a spokesperson instructed Fox Information Digital, “We don’t comment on such books.”
“The story of Prince Andrew and the teddy bears is very revealing,” Quinn instructed Fox Information Digital. “Various members of staff who’ve worked for him have told me this is very typical of him. He is quite eccentric, and he has a collection of teddy bears, which he insists are placed every day in a certain position… a pyramid shape. And he gets very cross if it’s not done properly… He really doesn’t do anything for himself.”
“He has a member of staff who puts the teddy bears in order,” Quinn claimed. “There are quite a few – 20 or 30 – in the position that he likes every day. And I know that in the past… if they’re not placed exactly as he wants, he can be quite short-tempered and angry about it. So when he finds someone who is very good at it, he clings to them, and he gets the same person to do it every day.”
In accordance with Quinn, the 65-year-old isn’t a favourite amongst palace aides.
“A lot of his staff don’t think very much of him because they think he’s entitled and quite bad-tempered,” claimed Quinn. “And a lot of his bad temper, I think, is frustration because, in many ways, he felt he would be a better king than Charles, his brother. [Andrew] is less introspective, he’s less sensitive. He’s more of a… tough guy. And I think he feels frustrated even more now that he’s no longer a working royal. He does tend to take it out on the staff.”
“Again, that’s something that many members of staff and ex-members of staff have said to me,” stated Quinn. “He’s too fussy. And the teddy bears are a good example of that.”
In his e book, Quinn wrote that Andrew “has his collection of teddy bears lined up in order on his bed every day and if anything is out of place, he loses his temper.”
Quinn claimed {that a} explicit maid was assigned every day to rearrange the teddies “because she tended to get it right and Andrew liked her.” However when it got here to the remainder of his employees, Andrew might usually behave as in the event that they “were irritatingly stupid.”
This isn’t the primary time that Andrew’s reported love of cuddly toys has come to gentle. Within the 2024 Netflix drama “Scoop,” viewers see a pissed off Andrew, performed by Rufus Sewell, berating certainly one of his maids for not organizing the bears on his mattress appropriately.
In 2022, former Buckingham Palace maid Charlotte Briggs claimed to The Solar that she was accountable for laying out Andrew’s comfortable toys so as of measurement each morning within the mid-‘90s. The royal, who was reportedly Queen Elizabeth II’s favourite son, would have been in his mid-30s. She claimed to the outlet that he had 72 teddy bears on the time.
“As soon as I got the job, I was told about the teddies, and it was drilled into me how he wanted them,” Briggs claimed to the outlet. “I even had a day’s training. It was so peculiar. After all, he was a grown man who had served in the Falklands. Each had to be carefully positioned. They were old-fashioned teddy bears – the Steiff ones – and nearly all of them had sailor suits on and hats.”
“It took me half an hour to arrange them,” Briggs claimed. “Then, at bedtime, I had to take all the teddies off and arrange them around the room. They each had a set place. We had to stack the smaller ones in an unused fireplace, again in size order, to make them look pretty. His two favorite bears sat on two thrones on either side of the bed. The others would sit at the foot of the bed on the floor.”
Briggs claimed that if the bears weren’t positioned appropriately, he would lose his mood.
The Solar additionally reported that in a 2022 ITV documentary, Paul Web page, who was within the Royal Safety from 1998 to 2004, claimed he noticed “about 50 or 60 stuffed toys” on the prince’s mattress when he labored for the palace.
“There was a card… in a drawer and it was a picture of all these bears,” Web page claimed, as quoted by the outlet. “The reason for the laminated picture was if those bears weren’t put back in the right order by the maids, he would shout and scream.”
At the time of the documentary’s airing, each Buckingham Palace and a spokesperson for Andrew declined to remark.
Vogue additionally famous that Andrew himself as soon as spoke about his love of teddy bears.
“I’ve always collected teddy bears,” he stated in 2010, in keeping with The Solar, as quoted by the outlet.
“Everywhere I went in the navy, I used to buy a little teddy bear, so I’ve got a collection from all over the world of one sort or another,” he reportedly stated.
One factor Andrew reportedly doesn’t tolerate are facial moles. A number of former servants claimed to Quinn that Andrew had a member of his employees eliminated as a result of he disliked a mole they’d. Additionally they claimed Andrew had one other member of his employees moved as a result of he was sporting a nylon tie.
“He’s really fussy about things that the rest of us really would think were irrelevant,” Quinn claimed to Fox Information Digital. “There’s a very good example of a member of staff who had a large mole on their face. Andrew didn’t like this. He wasn’t directly rude to the person who had the mole, but he arranged for them to work somewhere else so that he didn’t have to see them, which was unkind.”
“The rules are very strict for staff,” stated Quinn. “As a result, [they] can be treated quite harshly. Another example is that one member of staff was wearing a tie that wasn’t silk. It was made from nylon. He was also moved.”
“And it just isn’t Andrew,” Quinn insisted. “There’s also a famous story about [his brother] Prince Edward. He complained because his chauffeur was looking in the rearview mirror of the car too often. Edward was said to be really cross with him for doing that.”
“One servant who worked as a footman just after the Second World War for the royal family, said, ‘Oh, we were just pieces of furniture. We just have to look good. We didn’t have the sort of employment rights people have now,’” Quinn continued. “There are a number of stories… It’s a mixture. Sometimes [the royals] are very unkind to staff. Other times, they are extraordinarily kind to staff. It depends on who you get.”
Quinn additionally identified that Andrew isn’t the one one with quirks.
He claimed in his e book that King Charles has “little bursts of irritation with his staff” if he isn’t given the fitting teacup, completely polished sneakers and toothpaste neatly squeezed onto his toothbrush in precisely the way in which he likes it.
“He loses his temper in a split second, but usually quickly regrets it,” Quinn wrote.
Christopher Andersen beforehand claimed in his e book “The King” that, like Andrew, Charles has a comfortable spot for his childhood teddy bear.
“Charles has a very strict routine, and he hates his routine being disrupted,” Quinn instructed Fox Information Digital. “He gets very irritated. When a member of staff draws a bath for him, if it’s not exactly the right temperature and depth, he gets very irritated. If his shoes are not polished exactly as he likes them to be polished, he can become quite irritable, even angry.”
“Most famously, and he absolutely insists on this every day, he has six eggs cooked for him,” Quinn claimed. “He believes that’s the only way to make sure at least two are perfectly cooked to his liking. The others are just discarded… There is also the famous story about Charles and the toothpaste. He expects the toothpaste to be put on his brush each day.”
“To be fair to him, that all started when he hurt his arm after falling from a [horse] while playing polo,” Quinn continued. “You tend to become obsessive about these little things because you can’t go out and get a job, or you can’t leave the palace and just go shopping on your own. You become more and more eccentric.”
