A former Foreign Office diplomat has opened up about the five occasions he met with disgraced former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Upon meeting Mr Mountbatten-Windsor for the first time, Simon Wilson said he was “surprised” by one particular trait of the former prince’s.
“The first time I met him was in Lisbon at the embassy when I was running the small political section there,” Mr Wilson told 60 Minutes Australia in an interview.
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“And he was there as a naval officer. I have to say I was a little bit surprised about how sort of cocky he was.”
Years later, Mr Wilson met Mr Mountbatten-Windsor again, during his time as UK trade envoy.
“I was the deputy ambassador at the British embassy in Bahrain and was organising his visits basically and accompanying him on most of the meetings he went to,” Mr Wilson explained.
“But things started to go wrong from the word go. We started to get reams of instructions about his likes and dislikes in terms of food, that he didn’t drink alcohol, tea or coffee but would drink still water, room temperature, no ice.
“One thing that was noticeable, which I didn’t encounter with any other visit of a royal family, which they always went very smoothly anyway, was that his staff seemed to be petrified of him.”
Mr Wilson said that this was “very unusual”, noting that staff of other senior royals would always be “very proud to be working for them.”
“But you really got the impression with Prince Andrew’s staff that they were really uncomfortable all the time, treading on eggshells, didn’t want to put the foot wrong.”
Mr Wilson also revealed that Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was labelled “his buffoon highness” among diplomats, due to how unprepared he would be before important diplomatic meetings.
“I don’t know whether he’d even read the brief when he went into these meetings,” he said. “So this sort of arrogance and entitlement was just shocking.”
The former diplomat revealed he was surprised the disgraced royal lasted so long in the role, adding that “he was out of control, but he wasn’t reined in.”
“I mean 10 years or nine years is a hell of a long time when there had clearly a lot of things going wrong.”
Mr Mountbatten-Windsor worked as trade envoy from 2001 until 2011, during which time he was also in communication with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Fresh accusations that Mr Mountbatten-Windsor had shared sensitive information with Epstein came to light after the US Department of Justice released a trove of files relating to the convicted paedophile in early 2026.
On February 19, Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on the suspicion of misconduct in public office. The arrest coincided with his 66th birthday and shocked the world.
The former prince was held for questioning for 11 hours before he was released. Though he was not charged, investigations continue, and he is being held under bail-like conditions on account of his brother King Charles, not the police.
