PHIL DAMPIER OPINION
The “Tripod” is falling apart.
Reports that Princess Eugenie has “cut off all contact” with her father highlight a growing rift with sister Beatrice and mum Fergie.
Sarah Ferguson always said she and her daughters were so close they were like three joined legs, inseparably bound together.
But after the fallout from Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s royal exile, the family seems to be splintering – and fast.
Friends even fear the stresses and strains of this York Greek tragedy could drive a wedge between Bea, 37, and Eugenie, 35, just like William and Harry.
Although they were all there last month at the christening in London of Bea’s daughter Athena, it is not thought the whole family has reunited since.
“Devastated” Eugenie is reportedly not speaking to her dad, taking a dim view of his refusal to apologise to the survivors of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
As the co-founder of The Anti-Slavery Collective to help victims, you can understand her anger.
But older sister Beatrice is seemingly more supportive of Andrew, who will soon begin a new life in a modest home on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk.
Sources tell me there are several reasons for Beatrice’s more nuanced approach to this crisis.
“She was going to go ski-ing in Switzerland with friends at Christmas as she felt so torn between her parents and the royal family,” a friend said.
“But Prince William persuaded both Bea and Eugenie to join him and the King at Sandringham, and to hold their heads up high.
“It shows they still have a future, despite the sins of their parents.
“And let’s be honest it helps Bea and her husband to keep in with the royals.
“It boosts their status and ability to make money in the business world.”
Beatrice is of course higher up the royal line of succession than Eugenie and a counsellor of state, which means she could theoretically stand in for the monarch in an emergency.
I’m also told she feels some guilt because she encouraged Andrew to give his ill-judged interview to the BBC when he claimed he had never met sex accuser Virginia Giuffre.
Bea was standing in the wings as Andrew hung himself with disastrous answers to Emily Maitlis.
One widely ridiculed claim was that he couldn’t have danced the night away with Virginia, who took her own life last year, because he was at a birthday party with Bea for one of her friends at a Pizza Express restaurant.
Although Bea reportedly can’t remember the occasion more than 20 years ago, she has never said so publicly.
Bea and her husband Edo Mapelli Mozzi have offered Fergie refuge at their Cotswolds home until she finds somewhere to live.
And Eugenie, who is spending more time in Portugal with husband Jack Brooksbank, has also asked her to stay, although the London Telegraph reports she sometimes doesn’t talk to her mother for weeks either.
For now it seems only Beatrice will be keeping in contact with the former Prince Andrew at his new home.
“The whole sorry saga has been incredibly stressful and it’s ripped the family apart” the friend told me.
“Beatrice is heartbroken but she doesn’t want to abandon her father and you have to admire her loyalty, but it’s not been easy.”
Amid reports the King feels Andrew might have been punished enough, all concerned will have to hope time is a healer.
