A shocking new book is alleging that the late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein referred to Prince Andrew, the son of Queen Elizabeth, as “a useful idiot.”

In her new book “The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor – the Truth and the Turmoil,” which is due to be released on April 26, former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown explores the “scandals, love affairs, power plays and betrayals” that have hit the British royal family over the last two decades. She claims that Epstein often bragged to others about his friendship with Andrew.

“Privately, Epstein told people that Andrew was an idiot, but – to him – a useful one,” Brown wrote in an excerpt that was obtained by Fox News.

“A senior royal, even if tainted, is always a potent magnet abroad,” she added. “Epstein confided to a friend that he used to fly the Duke of York to obscure foreign markets, where governments were obliged to receive him, and Epstein went along as HRH’s investment adviser. With Andrew as frontman, Epstein could negotiate deals with these (often) shady players.”

Brown claims that Andrew was introduced to Epstein by Ghislaine Maxwell, who “fell madly in love” with Epstein “but the affair was brief.”

“As a strong-willed, mature woman with a short pixie haircut, she was nothing like the pliable, pre-adolescent waifs Epstein liked to dominate,” Brown wrote. “Their relationship quickly turned transactional: Epstein made the money, and Ghislaine made the introductions. Unable to hold his sexual attention, she found a way to keep him at her side by recruiting ‘nubiles’ (as she called them) to service his insatiable needs.”

Brown went on to allege that Epstein found ways to keep Andrew entertained.

“Epstein made Andrew feel he had joined the big time – the deals, the girls, the plane, the glittering New York world, where he wasn’t seen as a full-grown man still dependent on his mother’s Privy Purse strings or on the harsh pecking order of the Palace,” she claimed. “The Duke was always as oversexed as a boob-ogling adolescent.”

“The privacy of Epstein’s homes was a valuable prerequisite to a prince always trying to avoid Palace censure and the scorn of the press,” Brown added. “On visits to New York, instead of staying as expected at the British consulate, Andrew stayed just five blocks away with Epstein so often, he was given his own grandly decorated guest suite. The sardonic Epstein christened it ‘the Britannica Suite.’”

Brown also explored the bond between Andrew, Epstein, and Maxwell, and how they all used each other for their own personal gains.

“Prince Andrew was Ghislaine’s biggest social catch to present to Epstein,” she wrote. “He was easy to entertain and satiate. Andrew, Epstein and Ghislaine became a peripatetic social trio – the Three Musketeers of Lust – showing up together at Ascot, joining a shoot at Sandringham, and stepping out at the Queen’s Dance of the Decades at Windsor Castle in June 2000. Andrew insists that Epstein was there only as Ghislaine’s plus-one – but three months after the Sandringham weekend, in March 2001, there they were again, partying together, this time in London.”

“It is the events of that weekend that would seal the Duke of York’s destiny of descent and disappear him altogether into a lifelong pit of shame,” Brown concluded.

Epstein allegedly committed suicide in prison in August of 2019 while awaiting trial for various sex crime charges. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking back in December, and she is currently trying to appeal that conviction. Meanwhile, Andrew has been accused of having sex with an underage girl who is often referred to as Epstein’s former sex slave, and he has been forced to take a step back from royal life due to the scandal.

The royal family has yet to comment about the latest claims about Andrew and Epstein.