Prince Andrew’s ‘peculiar’ bedroom habit exposed by staff in new book

Claims of an odd personal demand made by the prince to his staff have surfaced in a new book.

Don’t mess with Prince Andrew and his teddy bears.

The Duke of York 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.

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, as a spokesperson responded to the story: “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.”

Prince Andrew reportedly is very particular when it comes to his teddy bears. Picture: Justin Tallis/AFP

MORE: Andrew hatches secret plan to screw Charles

According to Quinn, the 65-year-old isn’t a favourite 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.”

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 organising the bears on his bed correctly.

The duke still lives with his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

MORE: $57m Queen lodge now a dump under Prince Andrew

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’s favourite 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 favourite 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.

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.

Andrew himself once spoke about his love of teddy bears.

“I’ve always collected teddy bears,” he said in 2010, according to The Sun.

“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.

This article originally appeared in Fox News and was reproduced with permission.

Originally published as Prince Andrew’s ‘peculiar’ bedroom habit exposed by staff in new book