'Complete hypocrisy': Prince Harry and Meghan could have had half-in, half-out royal roles, author says

The author of the new Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson biography, Entitled, says the Duke and Duchess of York have shown royals can have half-in, half-out roles.

Andrew Lownie labelled The Firm's rejection of Prince Harry and Meghan's similar request which led to them leaving their senior working royal roles in 2020, as "complete hypocrisy".

"Fergie has been half-in, half-out for 30 years, and they didn't do anything," he tells nine.com.au during an event with Foreign Press Association journalists in London.

"I think the argument was that they were separated and then divorced but, again, half-in, half-out.

"We know she was in the Royal Box [at Wimbledon] and at royal functions and living with her husband. So it's just complete hypocrisy, the whole thing."

Lownie agrees to "double standards" between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the Duke and Duchess of York, but believes there's a critical difference as to why.

"Megan is just a less charming version of Fergie... Fergie did it much better than Megan," he says of public perception.

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"It's crazy, they could have had a half-in, I mean there is a model there."

The impact of Harry and Meghan's disappearance from the frontline as working royals put more pressure on the remaining senior members of royal family in taking on an even larger workload – and that was before King Charles' slimmed-down monarchy came to fruition.

Although Prince Andrew had stepped back from his royal duties in late 2019, after his car crash Newsnight interview over his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, he was only stripped of his titles in January 2022.

No longer able to attend royal events – other than private ones like last week's funeral for the Duchess of Kent, where Andrew was "keen to move himself to centre stage" on the rare occasion he could, Lownie says – he's pushing his daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie to the forefront and hoping to live vicariously through them.

The author says the Duke of York sees his daughters as the answer to the Harry and Meghan hole in the line-up.

"What Andrew is doing now is he's transferred all his ambitions to his daughter," Lownie claims.

"He's pushing them, they're part of the family business, they're doing a lot of work in the Middle East at least at the moment.

"Also, he's trying to get them into the royal family to take on life as a working royal."

There's long been rumours the two young women have been earmarked for such a role, with them both stepping up during Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022 and just months later, her funeral.

But whether they will continue to be able to move further forward into more prominent royal roles as their parents continue to get hit for their dealings with Epstein, remains to be seen.

It could be something that's needed in the reign of their cousin Prince William, as the current slimmed down monarchy dwindles out in the decades ahead – especially now with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex seemingly out of the picture for good.

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