Ex-Prince Andrew’s unusual water-drinking habit reportedly worried Queen Elizabeth II long before later royal crises. A new book extract notes the late monarch kept close watch on the former Duke of York. Her concern actually centered on a telling juvenile routine.
A family friend claimed Andrew never drank alcohol and only chose room-temperature water. That answer, the source said, stayed with the late Queen.
Book claims Ex-Prince Andrew’s unusual water drinking habit worried Queen Elizabeth II
In the Daily Mail report, Robert Hardman’s book traced the concern back years. One family friend said Ex-Prince Andrew “never drank alcohol” and “always stuck to room-temperature water.” Then came the explanation that reportedly unsettled the late Queen. The source said Andrew once explained it “like a child.”
The former Prince reportedly said, “I tasted it once when I was a teenager, and I didn’t like it.” According to the same friend, that was why Queen Elizabeth II “would always worry about him.” The habit, in that telling, became a wider clue.
Meanwhile, the same Daily Mail extract placed that habit inside a longer picture of Andrew’s personality. Hardman placed that image against the ex-Prince’s 1960 birth, after a ten-year gap. One family friend said he had been a “wonderful baby” after that break. That background, the report suggested, shaped how the Queen read his later behavior.
The same source said Andrew seemed “all things that her husband had been.” Then the friend called him “a straightforward, handsome naval officer.” However, the source also said he was “a seven-year-old who never grew up.” That line gave the water story more context.
Later, the report said that concern never fully disappeared inside palace life. A long-serving household member claimed, “She was always worried about him.” The same source said she saw him as “vulnerable” and thought he had been manipulated by “bad people.” That concern, the extract suggested, survived into her final years.
Still, the report said she was not blind to his conduct. Another recalled her blunt response after one complaint. “Oh, I’m sure he did it,” she reportedly said. The Queen then added, “That’s the sort of thing he does.” By then, Ex-Prince Andrew’s habit read less like trivia. In Hardman’s portrait, it sat beside a pattern that kept troubling his mother.
