Sidelined: Prince Andrew’s top aide behind ‘car crash’ Newsnight interview is shunted into new job running his Pitch@Palace scheme
- Amanda Thirsk was instrumental in setting up the interview with Emily Maitlis
- Duke of York facing huge backlash since it aired over Jeffrey Epstein friendship
- Royal source says that Thirsk was told ‘in no uncertain terms’ she’d lose her job
Thirsk (pictured) will lose her job, a royal source said
Prince Andrew’s right-hand woman is to be switched to running his tech awards and business funding scheme, a source said last night.
Amanda Thirsk, who was instrumental in persuading the beleaguered royal to agree to his disastrous Newsnight interview, was told yesterday by Andrew that she will no longer be his private secretary.
Instead she will become chief executive of Pitch@Palace, the prince’s Dragons’ Den-style scheme for entrepreneurs, and the Duke of York Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award (iDEA), which emulates the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme.
Yesterday, Prince Andrew went to Buckingham Palace to fire his top aide on the Queen’s orders, The Sun reports.
Last night, mother-of-three Mrs Thirsk, who has loyally stood by Andrew for 15 years, was still at her desk and declining to comment.
Buckingham Palace also refused to comment on what it said were ‘private staffing matters’.
Prince Andrew (pictured with Thirsk) faced a furious backlash after the Newnight interview his private secretary set up
But a royal source insisted: ‘Amanda has been told in no uncertain terms today that she will lose her job [as Andrew’s private secretary].’
A former banker, Mrs Thirsk was taken on in 2004 as the prince’s ‘office controller’.
In 2012 she was made his private secretary – and gatekeeper. It has been said of her: ‘She is very, very loyal. It is hard to know where she begins and Andrew ends.’