Prince Andrew’s former crisis manager has been secretly filmed saying the British royal was “f---ing underage girls” while friends with Jeffrey Epstein in embarrassing footage released online.
The hidden camera tape was made by MAGA provocateur James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, which has previously been accused of publishing deceptively edited videos.
Caught on tape is John Bryan, who dated Andrew’s wife, Sarah Ferguson, for six years from 1991 to 1997.
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He also became a friend of Prince Andrew despite U.K. newspaper claims that he sucked on Fergie’s toes while on vacation in the South of France in 1992.
Bryan has always derided the story as a tabloid exaggeration, saying he was playing an innocent game with Fergie’s kids where they pretended she was a fairytale princess and were kissing her feet.
However, it was a sensational story because Sarah was still married to Andrew at the time. She was staying at Balmoral with the royals when the story was published, and Queen Elizabeth II told her to pack her bags and leave immediately, while Prince Philip never spoke to her again.
Andrew and Sarah officially separated in the aftermath of the story and divorced in 1996.
Bryan, a businessman who runs Los Angeles-based corporate restructuring firm Watleys, has said he “stayed friends” with Sarah in the ensuing decades.
He has previously said he was summoned to Andrew’s side in the wake of a disastrous interview with the BBC in which the royal addressed his relationship with Epstein—and the notorious photo of him with his arm around Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who was then 17.
Andrew said couldn’t have had sex with a teenage Giuffre because he was at a pizza restaurant with his kids. Andrew memorably stated that Giuffre must be mistaken about meeting him because she said he was sweaty and he claimed he couldn’t sweat.
Bryan met with Andrew after the interview and composed a five-page crisis response plan, which advised him, among other things, to express compassion for Epstein’s victims.
The plan was ultimately not followed by Andrew.
Giuffre died by suicide last month, but some members of her family have cast doubt on the manner of her death and suggested she was killed.
Several other people involved in the Epstein scandal have allegedly died of suicide, including Epstein himself and French model agent Jean-Luc Brunel.
Now, however, Bryan has been filmed making claims about Andrew having sex with girls by an undercover journalist working for O’Keefe, who was forced out of Project Veritas in a MAGA civil war.
O’Keefe, of course, knows what to do to generate online chatter around his video projects, and he spent several days earlier this week hyping the tape, saying he had to go into hiding and suggesting someone might try to stage his suicide.
In the tape, Bryan is seen at what appears to be a large event talking about Andrew to a female undercover reporter using a hidden camera.
Bryan said: “I was really p---ed because he lied to me.”
The journalist responded, “Lied about what? Epstein?”
Bryan responded: “Epstein. Then I did a big thing in the Daily Mail saying I believed Andrew. And then I found out he was lying. I was so p---ed.”
The journalist asked: “Lying about what? Screwing underage girls?”
Bryan responded: “That he was f---ing underage girls. I was so p---ed.”
In the 2022 interview with the Daily Mail to which Bryan refers in the tape, he said: “People always ask how Epstein made his money. He was supposed to be this tax wizard. But it was all a con. He blackmailed rich men and then made them pay to avoid scandal. He made hundreds of millions of dollars this way.
“Epstein tried to lure Andrew into his web, but I believe his ultimate mark was the queen. I believe Andrew is innocent. If he genuinely was involved in ‘orgies’ as has been alleged, then Epstein would have used that to try and bribe the queen into paying out millions to protect her family. Andrew has never had any money. The queen was the one with money.
“I truly believe Epstein was going after her but Andrew never gave him the ammunition to do so.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Bryan for comment. Prince Andrew no longer has media representation, but the Daily Beast has reached out for comment to a solicitor and a media adviser known to have worked with him previously and who are thought to still be in contact with the prince.
A friend of Andrew’s dismissed the tape as “dinner party bragging” and told the Daily Beast that the prince is no longer in regular contact with Bryan, but confirmed that he used to be.
Elsewhere in the O’Keefe tape, Bryan talks with evident amusement about how he was on the front pages of global newspapers when he was photographed with Sarah; his friendship with Princess Diana; and how he helped raise Fergie’s children, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.
