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Britain's Prince Andrew says he is stepping back from his public duties for the foreseeable future. Companies and universities have severed¹ ties with the queen's second son because of what was widely seen as a disastrous² interview. That interview was meant as damage control focusing on the prince's friendship with the late convicted sex offender³ Jeffrey Epstein.

NPR's Frank Langfitt is following the story in London. Frank, this has been moving so quickly. You were just on the air...

FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE⁴: (Laughter) Very, very quickly.

SHAPIRO: ...With us talking about this BBC interview which took place Saturday night. Why is the prince stepping back now?

LANGFITT: Well, what he says wormily (ph), Ari, is that his former friendship with Epstein is a, quote, "major disruption to the royal family's work." But the bottom line is, Ari, he didn't have any choice. Public support for the prince, which has never been very strong, frankly⁵, is collapsing⁶. The accounting⁷ firm KPMG and Standard Chartered Bank, they're both ending their sponsorship of a thing calledPitch@Palace, which is Prince Andrew's flagship charity. There's some Australian universities who also look like they're pulling out of it. And the telecom giant here, BT, says they could keep supporting a digital award that's associated with the prince if the award gets a different patron. So the message is very clear — people don't really want to work with them right now.

SHAPIRO: OK, so we know how this story goes when we're talking about a CEO or an elected public official. What does it mean for a royal to say he's pulling back from public duties?

LANGFITT: That's a great question. He's — Andrew is what's called a working royal. And so he sort of serves as the public face, a public face, of the monarchy⁸. So what he'll tend to do is make appearances on behalf of charities and causes. The things he's most interested in is entrepreneurship, science and tech. He's also a supporter of the English National Ballet. He's going to stop doing that and sort of go very low-profile, I think. He still, of course, will continue to receive income. His main source comes from the queen, his mom. But basically, I think you're not going to see a lot of him out there much for — maybe for quite some time.

SHAPIRO: Remind us what it is that the prince said in that interview that has made him so toxic⁹.

LANGFITT: A lot of things, Ari. You know, back in 2010, the prince stayed at Epstein's home in New York City. And this was already after Epstein had served times for soliciting¹⁰ prostitution from a minor¹¹. The prince said he went to say goodbye to Epstein and end the friendship. But he spent several days there, which didn't make a lot of sense to people. Another problem is that a woman accused Epstein of trafficking her to sleep with the prince back in 2001 when she was 17. The prince said he didn't remember the girl — then her name was Virginia Roberts — despite a picture of him with his arm around her.

Now just today, a Sky News poll came out here showing that just 6% percent of people polled said they believed the prince's explanations. And 47% thought his answers on BBC that Saturday night interview have damaged the royal family.

SHAPIRO: And beyond saying that he is pulling back from public duties, is Prince Andrew doing more to try to control the damage here?

LANGFITT: Well, I think today he did. I mean, he issued a statement basically. And what was striking was he showed contrition¹², which really you did not see in that BBC interview, which is one reason why I think people were really upset with him. You know, during the BBC interview, he never — what people say is he never expressed remorse¹³ for what Epstein did to his victims. Today, the statement, it was a totally different tone, Ari. He wrote, I continually and unequivocally regret — to unequivocally regret my associate with Jeffrey Epstein. He said, he deeply sympathized with the victims and can only hope that they can rebuild their lives and added that he's willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with the investigations¹⁴ if required. So a totally different response today than what we heard Saturday night and obviously doing whatever he can to try to repair the damage.

SHAPIRO: NPR's Frank Langfitt in London, thank you.

LANGFITT: You're very welcome, Ari.

英国安德鲁王子表示，他将在可预见的未来辞去公共职务。因为一场被普遍视为灾难的采访，各企业和高校已经切断了与女王第二个儿子的关系。这场采访本意是对安德鲁王子与已故性罪犯杰弗里·爱泼斯坦之间的友情进行损害控制。

NPR新闻的弗兰克·朗菲特正在伦敦关注事件进展。弗兰克，这一事件发展得非常迅速。你刚报道过……

弗兰克·朗菲特连线：（笑）非常非常快。

夏皮罗：BBC在周日晚上进行的采访。为什么王子现在要辞职？

朗菲特：阿里，他说他之前与爱泼斯坦的友谊已经“对英国王室的工作造成了重大破坏”。阿里，但关键是，他根本没有任何选择。说实话，公众从未给安德鲁王子提供过强有力的支持，而现在公共支持更是几乎崩塌。毕马威会计师事务所和英国渣打银行都终止了对“龙门创将”项目的赞助，该项目是安德鲁王子的旗舰慈善计划。几所澳大利亚高校似乎也计划退出该项目。电信巨头英国电信公司表示，他们可能会继续支持与安德鲁王子有关的一项数字奖，前提是该奖项要更换赞助人。可以说，所传递的信息非常明确，即现在人们真的不想和他们合作。

夏皮罗：好，我们知道涉及首席执行官或民选公职人员时，事态会如何发展。那王室成员宣布辞去公职意味着什么？

朗菲特：这是个很好的问题。安德鲁是“以王室成员身份工作”。可以说，他是英国王室的公众形象。他应该以慈善事业和公益事业的名义公开活动。他最感兴趣的领域是创业、科学和技术。他还是英国皇家芭蕾舞团的赞助者。我认为，他将停止这些工作，低调生活。当然，他仍能继续获得收入。他的主要收入来源于英国女王，也就是他的母亲。不过基本上来说，我认为可能他在很长一段时间不会出席公开活动了。

夏皮罗：请帮我们回忆一下，王子在令他陷入困境的那场采访中说了什么？

朗菲特：阿里，他提到了很多事情。2010年时，安德鲁王子曾在爱泼斯坦位于纽约市的家中生活过一段时间。当时，爱泼斯坦刚刚出狱，而他入狱的罪名是诱使未成年人卖淫。安德鲁王子表示，他是去和爱泼斯坦告别并结束二人的友情的。但他在后者家中住了好几天，因此他的说辞对人们来说并不合理。另一个问题是，一名女子指控爱泼斯坦在2001年安排她与安德鲁王子发生关系，当时她只有17岁。安德鲁王子称他不记得这名女孩，当时她的名字是弗吉尼亚·罗伯兹，但照片显示王子曾搂着该女子合影。

天空新闻频道今天公布的民调结果显示，只有6%的受访者相信安德鲁王子的解释。47%的受访者认为，他在周六晚上接受BBC采访时的回答对英国王室造成了损害。

夏皮罗：除了宣布辞去公职以外，安德鲁王子有没有采取其他措施来控制损害？

朗菲特：今天他采取了措施。他发表了一份声明。令人震惊的是，他在声明中表示了悔恨之情，而这是他在BBC采访中没有表达过的，我想正是因为他没有表示悔恨才令人们对他如此失望。人们说，他在BBC的采访中从未就爱泼斯坦对受害人的所做所为表示悔意。阿里，他今天发表的声明则完全换了个基调。他在声明中写道，毫无疑问，我一直对自已与杰弗里·爱泼斯坦的关系感到后悔。他说，他对受害者深表同情，只希望她们能重建自己的生活，他还表示，如果有需要，他愿意协助任何适当的执法机构对爱泼斯坦进行调查。因此，他今天的回应与我们在周六晚上听到的完全不同，显然，他在尽其所能地修复损害。

夏皮罗：以上是NPR新闻的弗兰克·朗菲特从伦敦带来的报道，谢谢你。

朗菲特：不客气，阿里。