10 Rumors About Prince Edward We Couldn't Ignore

There were some startling revelations in Prince Harry's memoir "Spare," but the book's title references a royal truism: the need to produce at least two offspring — the so-called heir and a spare — just in case things don't work out for the former. In the case of the late Queen Elizabeth II, she offered up a few extra "spares" after the birth of King Charles III, who was followed by siblings Princess Anne, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor (previously known as Prince Andrew before his controversial association with Jeffrey Epstein led to all of his titles being stripped away), and, finally, Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh.

Now that Charles has succeeded his mother on the throne, the multiple scandals surrounding Andrew and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson have led to exile. Meanwhile, the truth about the solid and stoic Princess Anne is that she has gained a reputation as the hardest-working British royal, while Prince Edward inherited the Duke of Edinburgh title from his late father, Prince Phillip. While Edward has largely managed to avoid the kind scandals that have dogged both his brothers over the years — King Charles does boast some memorable scandals of his own — he's nevertheless found himself the subject of gossip on more than a few occasions. Read on to examine nine rumors about Prince Edward we simply couldn't ignore.

Back in 1987, 22-year-old Prince Edward made headlines when he abruptly quit the Royal Marines, just four months into what was supposed to be a 12-month training regimen. The queen was "icily displeased," Tina Brown wrote in "The Palace Papers" (via Yahoo! News), considering his actions to constitute a "dereliction of duty." Rumors at the time indicated Edward couldn't hack it, finding the military training more than he could handle. Indeed, the Earl of Wessex, as he was known at the time, accrued some injuries, which included twisting his ankle, injuring his knee, and even having his nose broken during a boxing match. 

The rumors that he quit because the training was too tough only increased after British tabloid The Sun claimed that Edward cried for a full three hours upon announcing his decision — and had a "furious row" with his father, Prince Philip (via the Los Angeles Times). Philip had scolded Edward and told the young prince to "pull himself together to spare the royal family embarrassment," per the outlet. However, Edward's commandant, Colonel Ian Moore, insisted that prior to his resignation, Edward had been doing just peachy. "Let me make it quite clear that he was doing well in his training," he told The Guardian. "He had all the physical ability to complete his training satisfactorily — indeed well." Despite the colonel's assertions, public perception was not kind to Edward; the New York Post described him as "the weeping wimp of Windsor," while the New York Daily News asked whether he should be referred to as a "British Lion or Prince Wimp?" (via UPI).

After exiting the Royal Marines, Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh (previously Earl of Wessex), gravitated toward the performing arts. That included working in the theater company of Andrew Lloyd-Webber, where the prince served as a production assistant. Despite reports that he'd dated several women, his theatrical ambitions led to whispers that he was gay. According to Kitty Kelley's book, "The Royals," journalist Christopher Hitchens once claimed that Edward's nickname around the London theater scene's gay community was "Dishcloth Doris," which writer Gore Vidal later amended to "Dockyard Doris," the latter being a reference to a popular London drag performer during the '80s and '90s.

Those rumors persisted and burst into the mainstream when some reporters questioned Edward about his sexuality. According to Garth Gibbs and Sean Smith's book, "Sophie's Kiss," Edward denied being gay. '"It's just outrageous to suggest this sort of thing," he said (via Vanity Fair). "It's so unfair to me and my family ... I am not gay, but what can I do about it? ... I can only repeat — it's very unfair."

The rumors died down after Edward married Sophie Rhys-Jones, now known as the Duchess of Edinburgh. However, author Wendy Leigh has claimed that their marriage was one of convenience, intended to hide the prince's alleged homosexuality. "[Edward] got to cover up his preference for men, while his commoner bride — who became the Countess of Wessex the moment she said 'I do' — got to live like a royal," Leigh wrote in her book, "Edward Windsor: Royal Enigma" (via RadarOnline). This same rumor was reignited when Duchess Sophie was spotted without her wedding ring while attending a 2025 garden festival.

After working as a production assistant for Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Really Useful Theatre Company from 1988 to 1990, Prince Edward and five colleagues left to collaborate on their own company, The Theatre Division. The company's aim was to fund stage shows, but the whole thing imploded spectacularly. A year later, the company went under, owing nearly a million dollars in debt. Undeterred by that failure, Prince Edward jumped into the television business in 1993 by launching his own production company, Ardent Productions, serving as co-owner and joint managing director. In a statement, Edward said he was "looking forward to working full time with my new colleagues and making Ardent Productions into a name that everyone will come to recognize as makers of serious arts, drama and documentary programs for British television" (via Deseret News).

As it turned out, Ardent burned through cash and produced very little. Those within the British film and TV industry claimed that Edward was woefully unprepared, with little experience and no real ability to be a producer. "They're a sad joke in the industry, really," an unnamed entertainment executive told The Guardian. "As time has gone on, their incompetence has become more and more obvious. There have been very small examples of vanity TV companies before, but not on this scale. Any company, in any industry, that had burned through that much share capital without making a profit would've been closed down by its investors years ago."

In 2002, less than a decade after its launch, Prince Edward announced that he was quitting Ardent Productions. Like his previous company, Ardent was in the hole, having lost $2.4 million since it was founded. Edward's exit came just one year after the company dragged him into scandal, when an Ardent film crew was caught red-handed stalking Prince William, then a student a St. Andrews University in Scotland. Not only were the optics shocking — Edward exploiting his nephew for the financial gain of his company — the crew had also ignored a wide-reaching agreement between Buckingham Palace and the media to leave the future monarch alone during his time at university. 

Making a shady situation even shadier, Ardent claimed the only reason the crew was filming in Scotland was to shoot a documentary about tourism. That was proven to be a lie when it emerged that the actual purpose was to film footage for "The A to Z of Royalty," set to air in America on the E! network. The rector at St. Andrew's expressed his outrage. "We thought maybe paparazzi or maybe a British tabloid, but it never crossed our minds that the first people to breach [the prince's privacy] would be a company owned by the royal family. It beggars belief," he said at the time (via Variety). Prince Edward claimed ignorance, insisting he had no knowledge about his own company's activities.

It has long been rumored that the scandal-ridden Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, was the favorite of Queen Elizabeth II. However, royal watchers have also speculated that the late monarch had a very close relationship with Prince Edward. This doesn't come as much of a surprise, given reports that by the time Edward was born — Edward is 16 years younger than Elizabeth's eldest, King Charles — the queen had more time to devote to motherhood than she did with her older children and was less inclined to pass Edward off to his nanny as she worked.

As a result, the truth about Queen Elizabeth's relationship with Prince Edward is that they shared a close bond. In fact, there are some who would contend that it was Edward, not Andrew, who was actually the queen's favorite. "As her youngest child and with a large age gap between himself and Charles and Anne, Edward seems to have been the baby that the queen allowed herself to dote on openly, rather than adopting a rather more formal approach with in public," body language expert Judi James told the Express. 

Meanwhile, it was clear in Her Majesty's later years that her admiration for Edward increased, as she couldn't have been too happy about all the scandal that Andrew's association with Jeffrey Epstein brought to the royal family. In fact, royal watchers noticed a definite shift in the queen's opinion around the time that Andrew stepped down from public duties, while Edward and his wife stepped up to take on more royal responsibility.

When looking inside Prince Edward's relationship with King Charles III, it's clear that there have been some moments of strain between the oldest and youngest of Queen Elizabeth II's children. A low point came after the Edward's Ardent Productions scandal involving Prince William. As Robert Jobson recounted in his book, "William And Kate: The Love Story," William was "furious" at his uncle, while Charles was no less incensed. "When the story emerged, Prince Charles understandably went ballistic," wrote Jobson. "He berated his youngest sibling ... Relations between the brothers plummeted to an all-time low as St James' Palace publicly criticized Edward for his idiocy and the behavior of his production company."

That said, the problems between the two brothers may run even deeper than that. In 2021, a source told the Daily Beast that Charles and the Duke of Edinburgh "barely know each other." Royal expert Christopher Anderson likewise told the outlet, "Charles harbors varying degrees of resentment toward all three of his siblings — Anne, Andrew, and Edward — for the affection and attention that was lavished on them by their parents and denied him from the very beginning. On a certain level, Charles must also hate the fact that Edward and Sophie have been lauded for stepping up to fill in the void left by the departure of Harry and Meghan."

Before their respective deaths, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip had decided that when he passed, his title as Duke of Edinburgh would be passed onto their youngest son, Prince Edward. However, the decision to bestow that title upon Edward ultimately wound up in the hands of King Charles III. Prior to Charles' ascending to the throne, a rumor emerged alleging that Charles was planning to deny Edward that title. 

In 2021, it was reported that Charles had made a change in plans. "It is up to him what happens to the title. It will not go to Edward," a source told The Times. "Edinburgh won't go to [the Wessexes] as far as [Charles] is concerned," another source told the outlet.  A spokesperson for Charles issued a statement that didn't deny this claim so much as muddy the water even further. "All stories of this nature are speculation and no final decisions have been taken," the spokesperson told People. Ultimately, that rumor proved to be untrue when Charles bestowed the Duke of Edinburgh title on Edward in 2023.

Further evidence of friction between Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, and King Charles III could be seen in a rumor about Charles' petty behavior toward Edward and his wife that emerged during the 2023 holiday season. During the annual royal family Christmas gathering at Sandringham, the royal country house, it was a that a lack of space led Charles to assign Edward and Sophie to bunk down in staff quarters — hardly the royal treatment! Edward and Sophie were reportedly miffed at their less-than-regal accommodations. 

The following Christmas, more rumors emerged about strife at Sandringham. In 2024, Charles had assigned Edward and Sophie to share a cottage with their scandal-plagued brother, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh were "less than pleased" by that arrangement and refused to share quarters with him, per The Sun. The situation was ultimately defused when Andrew disinvited himself and opted out of partaking in the annual Yuletide festivities.

According to Tom Bower, author of the King Charles biography "Rebel Prince," Charles' rumored actions toward Edward are further proof of the king's resentment. "I find it bizarre that a 72-year-old man could be jealous of his younger brother, who does not have any public status whatsoever, who doesn't offer a challenge, who is not political," Bower told the Daily Beast. "Edward is a harmless soul, which makes it even more baffling why this has suddenly arisen."

Twice each year, it is traditional for Britain's monarch to announce an honors list, in which various luminaries — including royals — are honored by the Crown. When King Charles issued his list in April of 2024, honorees included Queen Camilla, Prince William of Wales, and Princess Catherine of Wales. Excluded were the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, which royal watchers found curious, particularly given how much the couple had stepped up to take on additional public duties after the king stepped back in the wake of his cancer diagnosis.

Queen Camilla was presented with a new title, the Grand Master and First or Principal Dame Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Prince William likewise received a new title, Great Master of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath, while Princess Kate was named the Royal Companion of the Order of the Companions of Honor. "Edward's household were hoping he would get an honor," a source told Us Weekly, contending that Edward and Sophie were disheartened by not being recognized, but remained committed to picking up the slack. "It was disappointing, the snub, but they are still as loyal as ever," the source added.

It's no secret that Prince Edward lives a really lavish life. On a day-to-day basis, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh reside at Bagshot Park, a sprawling 120-room mansion situated on more than 50 acres of land in Surrey, a county on the outskirts of London. While details are a little sketchy, it's long been believed that Edward initially signed a 50-year lease to live there and subsequently extended that lease for an additional 150 years. 

However, the actual details of Edward's Bagshot Park lease have been shrouded in mystery, and rumors have abounded. Edward had been paying the market rate for the unbelievably lavish home — until 2007, that is, at which point he re-upped for another century and a half. When that lease was renewed, there were some major details that had been redacted on the Land Registry.

Rumor has it that Edward was initially paying a measly £5,000 a year when he first leased the estate in March 1998, but that was increased significantly (because of the aforementioned market value) to £90,000 a year. According to reports, he paid £5 million for that 150-year lease extension. That translates to about a third of what he'd been previously paying, approximately £33,333 per year, or a little less than £2,800 per month. Not too shabby for a luxurious property that includes a private lake, horse stables, billiards room, and many other royal amenities.