A Major Prince Andrew Ally Seems To Be Changing His Tune
Attempts to rehab Prince Andrew's image during Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee are going as well as you'd expect. The disgraced prince's comeback attempts are falling flat, to little surprise. The queen's second son will join his mom at the Service of Thanksgiving service at St. Paul's Cathedral on June 3, per the Independent, but the general British public doesn't seem to buy it.
Newsweek reported the Duke of York's approval rating in the U.K. is -80, according to YouGov. Another sign of the public's disgust about "Randy Andy" is that one of the top songs in the U.K. this week is "Prince Andrew is a Sweaty N***e," according to the Independent. The cheeky tune is climbing the charts the closer it gets to Platinum Jubilee events. British activist Shola Mos-Shogbamimu told Newsweek that Andrew's participation in the Platinum Jubilee "says to the rest of the world that the British people are fools. Because the only reason the monarchy can do that and get away with it is because they think that we are fools." The activist continued, "It's almost like, we are better than you, we are higher than you, we are richer than you, whatever we say is what's going to go." Ouch.
Now, after a major ally changed his tune about Andrew, the prince was dealt another blow.
The Archbishop of Canterbury walked back his defense of Prince Andrew
The Archbishop of Canterbury has changed his tune about Prince Andrew after a tidal wave of backlash. Archbishop Justin Welby was forced to walk back comments made during a May 31 interview on ITV News (via The Guardian) when he said Andrew was "seeking to make amends," which was "a very good thing." Welby urged Brits to be more "open and forgiving" about the prince's alleged sexual assault of 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre. The Twitter ratio was scathing following Welby's comments.
The Twitter tsunami that hit Welby included sarcastic retorts, such as this tweet: "It is difficult to forgive someone that neither admits to or shows remorse for wrong they've done." Still, some Twitterati were quite angry. One Brit tweeted: "Make amends? The Archbishop can shove it. Prince Andrew is a n***e. His mother used 12m in public funds to make his legal issues go away." One especially brutal tweet invoked Meghan Markle: "Watching media and bishops bend over backwards to propose that 'we' should forgive Prince Andrew. Meanwhile gutter press laying into Duchess of Sussex for breathing." Snap!
Sky News reported Welby walked back his comments, saying he tried to make a "broader point that I hope we can become a more forgiving society." Right.