Don’t mess with Randy Andy and his teddy bears.
Prince Andrew reportedly has an obsession with his prized collection of teddy bears, which must be placed in perfect order in his bedroom.
The claim was made by royal author Tom Quinn, who has penned a new book, “Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants.” It’s based on hundreds of interviews with former and current palace staff members.
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A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace previously told Fox News Digital that they don’t answer for the Duke of York as he’s no longer a working royal. However, a spokesperson told Fox News Digital, “We don’t comment on such books.”
“The story of Prince Andrew and the teddy bears is very revealing,” Quinn told Fox News Digital. “Various members of staff who’ve worked for him have told me this is very typical of him. He is quite eccentric, and he has a collection of teddy bears, which he insists are placed every day in a certain position… a pyramid shape. And he gets very cross if it’s not done properly… He really doesn’t do anything for himself.”
“He has a member of staff who puts the teddy bears in order,” Quinn claimed. “There are quite a few – 20 or 30 – in the position that he likes every day. And I know that in the past… if they’re not placed exactly as he wants, he can be quite short-tempered and angry about it. So when he finds someone who is very good at it, he clings to them, and he gets the same person to do it every day.”
According to Quinn, the 65-year-old isn’t a favorite among palace aides.
“A lot of his staff don’t think very much of him because they think he’s entitled and quite bad-tempered,” claimed Quinn. “And a lot of his bad temper, I think, is frustration because, in many ways, he felt he would be a better king than Charles, his brother. [Andrew] is less introspective, he’s less sensitive. He’s more of a… tough guy. And I think he feels frustrated even more now that he’s no longer a working royal. He does tend to take it out on the staff.”
“Again, that’s something that many members of staff and ex-members of staff have said to me,” said Quinn. “He’s too fussy. And the teddy bears are a good example of that.”
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In his book, Quinn wrote that Andrew “has his collection of teddy bears lined up in order on his bed every day and if anything is out of place, he loses his temper.”
Quinn claimed that a particular maid was assigned each day to arrange the teddies “because she tended to get it right and Andrew liked her.” But when it came to the rest of his staff, Andrew could often behave as if they “were irritatingly stupid.”
This isn’t the first time that Andrew’s reported love of cuddly toys has come to light. In the 2024 Netflix drama “Scoop,” viewers see a frustrated Andrew, played by Rufus Sewell, berating one of his maids for not organizing the bears on his bed correctly.
In 2022, former Buckingham Palace maid Charlotte Briggs claimed to The Sun that she was responsible for laying out Andrew’s soft toys in order of size every morning in the mid-‘90s. The royal, who was reportedly Queen Elizabeth II’s favorite son, would have been in his mid-30s. She claimed to the outlet that he had 72 teddy bears at the time.
“As soon as I got the job, I was told about the teddies, and it was drilled into me how he wanted them,” Briggs claimed to the outlet. “I even had a day’s training. It was so peculiar. After all, he was a grown man who had served in the Falklands. Each had to be carefully positioned. They were old-fashioned teddy bears – the Steiff ones – and nearly all of them had sailor suits on and hats.”
“It took me half an hour to arrange them,” Briggs claimed. “Then, at bedtime, I had to take all the teddies off and arrange them around the room. They each had a set place. We had to stack the smaller ones in an unused fireplace, again in size order, to make them look pretty. His two favorite bears sat on two thrones on either side of the bed. The others would sit at the foot of the bed on the floor.”
Briggs claimed that if the bears weren’t placed correctly, he would lose his temper.
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The Sun also reported that in a 2022 ITV documentary, Paul Page, who was in the Royal Protection from 1998 to 2004, claimed he saw “about 50 or 60 stuffed toys” on the prince’s bed when he worked for the palace.
“There was a card… in a drawer and it was a picture of all these bears,” Page claimed, as quoted by the outlet. “The reason for the laminated picture was if those bears weren’t put back in the right order by the maids, he would shout and scream.”
At the time of the documentary’s airing, both Buckingham Palace and a spokesperson for Andrew declined to comment.
Vogue also noted that Andrew himself once spoke about his love of teddy bears.
“I’ve always collected teddy bears,” he said in 2010, according to The Sun, as quoted by the outlet.
“Everywhere I went in the navy, I used to buy a little teddy bear, so I’ve got a collection from all over the world of one sort or another,” he reportedly said.
One thing Andrew reportedly doesn’t tolerate are facial moles. Several former servants claimed to Quinn that Andrew had a member of his staff removed because he disliked a mole they had. They also claimed Andrew had another member of his staff moved because he was wearing a nylon tie.
“He’s really fussy about things that the rest of us really would think were irrelevant,” Quinn claimed to Fox News Digital. “There’s a very good example of a member of staff who had a large mole on their face. Andrew didn’t like this. He wasn’t directly rude to the person who had the mole, but he arranged for them to work somewhere else so that he didn’t have to see them, which was unkind.”
“The rules are very strict for staff,” said Quinn. “As a result, [they] can be treated quite harshly. Another example is that one member of staff was wearing a tie that wasn’t silk. It was made from nylon. He was also moved.”
“And it just isn’t Andrew,” Quinn insisted. “There’s also a famous story about [his brother] Prince Edward. He complained because his chauffeur was looking in the rearview mirror of the car too often. Edward was said to be really cross with him for doing that.”
“One servant who worked as a footman just after the Second World War for the royal family, said, ‘Oh, we were just pieces of furniture. We just have to look good. We didn’t have the sort of employment rights people have now,’” Quinn continued. “There are a number of stories… It’s a mixture. Sometimes [the royals] are very unkind to staff. Other times, they are extraordinarily kind to staff. It depends on who you get.”
Quinn also pointed out that Andrew isn’t the only one with quirks.
He claimed in his book that King Charles has “little bursts of irritation with his staff” if he isn’t given the right teacup, perfectly polished shoes and toothpaste neatly squeezed onto his toothbrush in exactly the way he likes it.
“He loses his temper in a split second, but usually quickly regrets it,” Quinn wrote.
Christopher Andersen previously claimed in his book “The King” that, like Andrew, Charles has a soft spot for his childhood teddy bear.
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“Charles has a very strict routine, and he hates his routine being disrupted,” Quinn told Fox News Digital. “He gets very irritated. When a member of staff draws a bath for him, if it’s not exactly the right temperature and depth, he gets very irritated. If his shoes are not polished exactly as he likes them to be polished, he can become quite irritable, even angry.”
“Most famously, and he absolutely insists on this every day, he has six eggs cooked for him,” Quinn claimed. “He believes that’s the only way to make sure at least two are perfectly cooked to his liking. The others are just discarded… There is also the famous story about Charles and the toothpaste. He expects the toothpaste to be put on his brush each day.”
“To be fair to him, that all started when he hurt his arm after falling from a [horse] while playing polo,” Quinn continued. “You tend to become obsessive about these little things because you can’t go out and get a job, or you can’t leave the palace and just go shopping on your own. You become more and more eccentric.”
