- Prince Andrew made a new Instagram post
- He shared it on Sarah Ferguson's page
- The message was deleted shortly after
Prince Andrew is everywhere all of a sudden. After he supported the Queen at Prince Philip's memorial this week, the disgraced royal also made an unexpected return to social media.
Prince Andrew, who recently settled his sex case out of court for reported millions, shared a message on his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson's Instagram page. The posts were deleted shortly after, but here's what they were about.
Prince Andrew returns to social media after sex case
It's unclear why the posts were deleted, but Fergie shared three photos in which she asked Prince Andrew to reflect on the 40th anniversary of his service in the Falklands War.
We still have the posts, in which Fergie briefly wrote: "I asked Andrew this morning for his reflections on the anniversary of his sailing from Portsmouth to the Falkland Islands 40 years ago." Prince Andrew then took over and shared a message across three posts (which can be read in full below).
Fergie's last post was a photo of a young Prince Andrew in his military uniform, and he signed off the message: "Written by The Duke of York." But Prince Andrew's ex has cleared her Instagram page of the posts a day later.
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They had their reasons!
Elegance for days!
Prince Andrew, of course, is not on social media. He had to delete his various pages a few months ago when Queen Elizabeth stripped him of military roles, royal patronages, and use of the HRH style.
And we've hardly seen him at all since late 2019. It all stems from his sex scandal and connections to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Andrew's fall from grace culminated in a damaging lawsuit, which he settled out of court with accuser Virginia Giuffre in February.
Giuffre said Prince Andrew abused her three times while she was a victim of Epstein's child sex trafficking ring. In the end, the royal admitted to no wrongdoing on Giuffre's allegations, but the multimillion-dollar settlement also failed to clear his name.
Nevertheless, Prince Andrew was front and centre with the Queen at Prince Philip's memorial a couple weeks later, and he apparently thought it a good idea to go on Fergie's Instagram.
Prince Andrew's full Instagram post on Fergie's page
Here's Prince Andrew's full message — which has since been deleted — from Sarah Ferguson's Instagram. He reflected on his Falklands War service: "As I sit here at my desk on this cold crisp spring morning thinking back to April 1982 I've tried to think what was going through my mind as we sailed out of Portsmouth lining the flight deck of HMS INVINCIBLE.
"I don't think anyone on board at that time ever thought that we'd end up in a shooting war. I think we thought that there would be a bit of posturing and building up of force either in and around the South West Approaches or even as far as Gibraltar. We might get to Ascension Island but the need to end up in a shooting war wasn't at the front of our minds that day we sailed. It wasn't until we passed Ascension Island after a very brief stop that things became serious.
"The stop was to offload training weapons and embark more live ammunition. From then on we knew it was serious. It seemed to be just a short sail south from Ascension before we were at the boundary of the Exclusion Zone and ready to commit to combat. I was just a small cog in an enormous effort to regain the Falkland Islands. My lasting memory is of 99% boredom, training and routine and that horrendous 1% of sheer terror as missiles and bombs and shells were thrown around. I provide you with just one lasting memory that is seared into my mind and still to this day I can see the event in my mind as clearly as if it happened yesterday.
"I did get shot at, but it was not intended for me, at the time Atlantic Conveyor was hit, I was airborne in the anti-submarine screen and told to climb to height and drop chaff (to confuse the enemy radar into believing there were many more targets than they thought and make their targeting solution more difficult and then to confuse the missiles into choosing the wrong target). I was flying and saw a chaff shell fired from one of our ships that passed not that far in front of us. For a moment it was on a steady bearing before it began to cross to our left. The terror that that was going to be that, just for a moment, has had a lasting and permanent effect on me.
"We then had to put that to one side and get on with the search and rescue mission to recover and find men in the water after Conveyor was hit and burning. But this morning whilst I think back, what has truly brought a full weep is the current thought that others in Ukraine are facing a more deadly threat and we can’t seem to learn from our history of conflict that it is the human being that suffers, it is the family’s that are torn apart by the indiscriminate bombardments, it is the bravery and courage of the few to defend the many that has really caught me as I reflect.
"My short war was, my goodness, 40 years ago. I can attest to the horrible truth that war is the result of failure not success. Equally I can sympathise with those fighting today in the knowledge that we thought we were going to do do the right thing in 1982 - eject an invader - but only those who experience war can tell you, whatever those sitting in warm cosy television studios tell you, war is a dreadful thing and EVERY effort should be made to avoid it, however 'just' someone on either side thinks it is.
"So whilst I think back to a day when a young man went to war, full of bravado, I returned a changed man. I put away childish things and false bravado and returned a man full in the knowledge of human frailty and suffering. My reflection makes me think even harder and pray even more fervently for those in conflict today, for those family's torn apart by the horrors they have witnessed.
"And, i'm afraid to say, that the historical perspective my short war has taught me is this - war is failure to keep peace; war is failure of human judgement; war is failure to recognise we need to seek permission to understand another persons perspective or reality, whether or not we agree or disagree with that perspective or reality. Written by The Duke of York."
Then in his early 20s, Prince Andrew served as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands War of 1982.
