DUTY CALLS

Prince Andrew, 65, Spends Days Playing Ironically Named Video Game

The disgraced prince is “bored and lonely,” a new report states.

Prince Andrew spends much of his time inside Royal Lodge playing Call of Duty for hours on end, a new report claimed Wednesday.

The 65-year-old prince, who no longer has any ceremonial engagements, lives in what The Sun describes as a kind of arrested adolescence. Apart from the ironically named video game, his days involve rising late, spending hours in front of “wall-to-wall TV,” and drifting through the rooms of his 30-bedroom Windsor mansion with little to do beyond watch movies or go for a twice-weekly ride.

Although Andrew’s social life will improve significantly when the pheasant shooting season starts in ten days, for now, according to The Sun, insiders say Andrew’s life has narrowed to a claustrophobic routine.

The report says he wakes in the late morning before taking breakfast served by staff. After that, he spends much of the day in a vast sitting room where a giant screen “takes up almost an entire wall,” playing video games or watching war films and golf coverage.

One source told the paper: “He loves games like Call of Duty, war games with helicopters. He certainly doesn’t play FIFA—he’s got no interest in football [soccer].”

Royal biographer Ingrid Seward said that friends of hers who have visited Royal Lodge describe a deeply withdrawn man.

One visitor told her that while Sarah Ferguson held their meeting at a grand mahogany table surrounded by royal portraits, Andrew was found in another room lying on a massive sofa, absorbed by an enormous television.

“Their lives seemed quite separate,” Seward said, with Fergie handling business affairs while Andrew remained glued to the screen.

Sources told The Sun that Andrew rarely leaves the estate except to ride twice a week or to shoot on nearby grounds.

Even then, he is said to be nervous about being photographed. “He’s not a particularly popular figure [at the stables],” said Seward, who added that local photographers often linger near the park hoping for a lucrative snap.

He used to have lunch every day with his mother, but, in the years since her death, nothing seems to have filled that space.

It was revealed yesterday that he has paid no rent on Royal Lodge, the sprawling, 98-acre estate once belonging to the Queen Mother, for the past 22 years.

Seward said: “His life is very empty, he’s very lonely, and he’s probably extremely bored.”

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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