Princess Beatrice and her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi have been hit by claims that their marriage is in trouble after her parents’ fall from grace. Here, The Mirror gets the lowdown on what’s really going on behind closed doors…
Princess Beatrice has had a torrid few months. First her disgraced parents were kicked out of their Royal Lodge home over their affiliation with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, then dad Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested, and now cruel rumours have surfaced claiming that her marriage is in trouble.
Since the latest tranche of Epstein files revealed the true extent of friendship between Epstein, Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, all eyes have been on the York family. Sarah Ferguson has gone to ground, while Andrew has set up a mobile home at his Sandringham home, reportedly to cater to round the clock staff.
Yesterday, Sarah was stripped of her “Freedom of the City of York” honour after a unanimous vote.
Meanwhile, their daughters Beatrice and Eugenie have been pulled into the fallout after their names cropped up in the millions of documents dropped by the US Congress in the Epstein files. The files indicate that their relationship with Epstein – clearly initiated by their parents – was a long-standing one. However, mentions in the Epstein files are not indicative of wrongdoing.
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One exchange from 2011, three years after his conviction for sex trafficking a minor, showed a correspondent, believed to be Ferguson, tell him how Beatrice believes he should be free to move on with his life. The email was sent after Ferguson publicly denounced Epstein to journalist Geordie Greig, while secretly staying in touch. “Beatrice and I had a discussion and we agreed it was important to call Geordie back and make sure he understood the severity of NOT making a mistake and getting it wrong about Jeffrey, because he was sent to prison for sexual offending, but that he had done his penance and was out of jail and moving on with his life,” the email read. “And Geordie was NOT in anyway to go down the P. route. I duly did the call, and Lee Ashley Johnson was also witness to that call as well as Beatrice.”
Another exchange in 2010 sees Epstein ask if there is “any chance” either of the sisters “saying hello” to an unnamed person visiting London. In 2015, an unknown account emailed Epstein mentioning that Beatrice would be joining them on a group trip to Mexico. “Oops…in Mexico on the group trip with DK, founder of Twitter etc. and it turns out princess Beatrice will be joining us too.
“I can see the headlines already. đ Do you still talk to them?” the sender wrote. Epstein replied, “she likes me its ok.”
Initially, it seemed that the rest of The Firm was backing the sisters. Both attended Christmas at Sandringham with their royal relatives and there was talk that Andrew even agreed to leave Royal Lodge on the proviso that they would be able to remain in the family.
But since then, it has been claimed that despite King Charles’s affection for his nieces, they aren’t allowed to attend Royal Ascot – and perhaps even will swerve the annual church service for Easter Sunday, and upcoming royal garden parties.
An insider told the Daily Mail: “Beatrice and Eugenie are particularly vulnerable at the moment. As they are dragged further into the Epstein web, the King is shifting his stance on the girls’ future. Although they aren’t implicated in any of Epstein’s wrongdoings, their own association with him threatens to tarnish the reputation of the throne.”
It’s been claimed that the sisters are responding differently to this turn of events. “Both girls are very highly strung and emotional, like their mother. Beatrice is trying to come to terms with it matter-of-factly although can’t help bursting into tears regularly – not for her father but for the implosion of her own world and, especially, the family’s cold shoulder. Her royal status means more to her than Eugenie,” a source told the Mail. On the other hand, Eugenie “has apparently gone into denial – fingers in the ears, head in the sand, hoping it will all go away.”
Naturally, the stress of the scandal is said to have impacted their respective marriages. Eugenie’s husband, Jack Brooksbank, has reportedly refused to allow her now homeless mum Sarah to move into their Portugal home. A source close to the family said that Jack maintains a “code of honour” which means he won’t “completely desert Andrew and Sarah”, but equally won’t “step into the line of fire himself”.
“His first loyalty has to be to his wife and their two young children. The whole sordid affair has already brought them a great deal of unwarranted attention, and he won’t do anything to increase that,” the source told The Mail. The boss of a consultancy firm is said to be worried about the potential impact the scandal could have on his business and fears his family will be “tainted by association”.
“Jack has worked very hard building his business, and it’s going well, so the last thing he needs is for the Epstein scandal to taint that,” the source added. “He will do everything he can to keep his head below the parapet because of that.”
The couple are reportedly hoping Ferguson won’t ask to move in with them. Another source claimed: “Eugenie and Jack are resisting any suggestion from her mother that she should come and live with them.
“Because, to be frank, Sarah is difficult to live with and they don’t want the responsibility of looking after her at the moment. That’s not to say they are not concerned about her welfare – they just don’t actually want her to be living with them, even temporarily.”
Meanwhile, there are rumours of trouble in paradise for Beatrice and her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, 42. Beatrice, 37, has been married to Edoardo since 2020 when they tied the knot in socially distanced service during the COVID-19 pandemic. They share two daughters, Sienna, four, and Athena, one, as well as Edo’s son Christopher ‘Wolfie’ – nine years old – from a previous relationship with Dara Huang.
The pair have not been seen together in recent weeks and tongues started wagging after Edoardo left her side in her hour of need to travel 4,500 miles away to Palm Beach, Florida. There, he posted Instagram pictures of himself enjoying a rose against the backdrop of a stylish hotel courtyard.
As the cofounder of a property development and design business – Banda – one ‘former associate’ claimed to the Mail that his business profile skyrocketed after he started a romance with Beatrice back in 2019: “When they first got together, Edo wasn’t nearly as successful. Being adjacent to royalty was transformative.”
Back in 2019, accounts from Companies House that indicated the design portion of the business was ÂŁ244,000 in debt – but now has a turnover of ÂŁ2.2 million. However, Edo’s friends insist he would never name drop his wife or her family.
Now, a source has brutally claimed that there’s a ‘noticeable distance’ between the pair since the Epstein scandal, and that “things haven’t been great for a while between them, [but] Beatrice is determined to soldier on and forge a path through this crisis.”
The source added that he “seems more and more distracted by work and travel… just when she needs him most, he’s been pulling away.” However, an insider tells the Mirror that these claims couldn’t be further from the mark, with a source close to the couple laughing off the suggestion that their marriage is on the rocks.
“This is nonsense,” the source said, while a second told Hello magazine that the businessman’s recent trips were nothing to do with the ongoing controversy surrounding Andrew and Fergie – and that instead the couple are doing a very similar juggling act to many parents who have to travel for work.
“The only thing Bea and Edo are navigating are their busy jobs and looking after their children! They’ve both had recent stints working abroad and like so many working parents, have balancing work with looking after the kids,” they said.
“Recent reports that things aren’t good between them are not true at all. Things are great between them and the only distance between them recently has been physical distance because of work!”
