Currently, we’re watching the British media do everything they can to drag the Duke and Duchess of Sussex back into the current royal gossip cycle. That’s how bad it is for King Charles, Prince William and ex-Prince Andrew, all of whom have been caught up in the sordid depravity of the Epstein Files. Andrew’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell are well known, even if we’re still learning new information about Epstein and Andrew’s extremely close relationship. Charles has come in for a lot of pointed criticism because he, like his mother, was very involved in trying to cover up Andrew’s crimes. We’ve also seen that William has several connections to Epstein’s associates, and that Epstein was seemingly attempting to cozy up to William through charities and patrons. Why focus on all of that when you’re a Daily Mail columnist and you can make everything about how Princess Eugenie and Beatrice should never maintain their friendships with Harry and Meghan? From Liz Jones’ “Sorry, Beatrice and Eugenie, you backed the wrong horse. Even Prince Harry and Meghan know you’re toxic. Now you will rue the day you crossed ‘ruthless’ Wills and Kate during Megxit…”

We all know the royals love horse-racing, but it gets a bit tricky when you back the wrong nag. Once upon a time, Princess Beatrice and her sister Eugenie chose to side with their fun, party-loving cousin Prince Harry, rather than stick with stick-in-the-mud William. And now, amid the toxic fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein saga, that decision is coming back to haunt them.

Eugenie and Harry, in particular, have always been close – though not especially in age (she’s 35, he’s 41). As Omid Scobie wrote in his Sussex hagiography Finding Freedom: ‘Of all the Queen’s grandchildren, Harry and Eugenie have one of the most natural connections.’

They spent a lot of time in childhood together, going on holidays with his mum Diana and hers, Fergie. Eugenie acted as Harry’s matchmaker more than once, introducing him to Cressida Bonas, and she was also reportedly among the first to know about his relationship with Meghan Markle, whom she knew through a mutual friend. She and her husband Jack Brooksbank ‘double-dated’ with Harry and Meghan in the Toronto ‘early years’, as well as in London, and she was the only royal to be praised in their shameless Oprah Winfrey interview. Meghan is once said to have regarded her as a friend, insofar as she sees anyone as a friend.

So Eugenie and Beatrice have always been more Team Sussex than Team Cambridge. Indeed, tensions between the princesses and William go at least as far back as 2011, when the now-heir to the throne failed to invite Beatrice’s long-term boyfriend Dave Clarke to his wedding to Kate.

Now, their misplaced loyalties could see the women one day lose not just their shirts but their titles, privileges, status and cherished royal freebies.

I’m certain William gave the sisters the benefit of the doubt, as we all did, when it emerged a convicted paedophile and another sex offender (Jeffrey Epstein and the ex-Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein) had been invited to Beatrice’s 18th birthday bash at Royal Lodge. I wager she barely knew half the names on the guest list.

I can only imagine that after these latest revelations in the Epstein files about the York sisters, with possibly more to seep under the door, that William and Catherine must be shuddering at the very thought of their cousins. They hoped that Andrew, at least, had been dealt with following the stripping of his titles and his home, Royal Lodge – but now the prospect that his daughters were caught up in the murky affair too must be causing them anguish. Catherine, in particular, will be appalled, given her commitment to the importance of early years safety.

Once William, far more ruthless than his gentle father, is King, will there be invites to the coronation, funerals or garden parties? Not waving from the balcony – but drowning in ignominy.

The only rubber ring that could possibly be tossed their way may come from Harry. Privately, perhaps, he’s sympathetic to his childhood chums. Embarrassed for Beatrice when reading her mother’s email to Epstein about her own daughter’s ‘sha**ing’ weekend. He knows what it feels like to make a mistake. He knows what it’s like to learn your dad is far from perfect. But Harry knows that Beatrice and Eugenie, however much he may like them personally, are tainted by their associations with their parents. He knows if he even touches these toxic links, they will poison him too. The girls made a terrible choice: now they have to live with it.

[From The Daily Mail]

This makes perfect sense if you exist in the royalist padded cell: the idea that Beatrice and Eugenie’s original sin was being closer to Harry than William, and that if only they had sucked up to William and Kate, perhaps their fate would not be sealed right now. This is not only the way the royal-reporter asylum sees things, it’s a reflection of William and Kate’s mindset as well. That the real crime B&E committed was “being friends with Harry and Meghan.” Anyway, I imagine Harry and Eugenie still talk, and Eugenie (more than Beatrice) is more likely to just cut her losses and “leave” the Firm and do her own thing. Sigh… is this Jones piece the direct result of a call from Kensington Palace?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.