Was really hoping this was just fabricated for the show.
After viewing Scoop on Netflix and being captivated by the character portrayed by Billie Piper, you might have been left wondering and perhaps feeling quite unsettled about Prince Andrew’s teddy bear collection.
The series depicts Prince Andrew surrounded by a plethora of teddy bears meticulously arranged on his bed, with a strong emphasis on their precise placement. He is depicted as reprimanding a maid for not arranging them correctly and shown stroking the teddy bears in a rather menacing manner. However, the burning question remains: is Prince Andrew’s extensive teddy bear collection a figment of the show’s imagination or a stark reality?
So, is Prince Andrew’s teddy bear collection as portrayed in Scoop based on truth?
Regrettably, the eerie teddy bear collection is indeed a factual element, as confirmed by a former maid who worked for Prince Andrew.
Charlotte Briggs, a past maid at Buckingham Palace, disclosed that she was tasked with arranging Prince Andrew’s 72 teddy bears meticulously every single morning according to their size. She recollected, “As soon as I got the job, I was told about the teddies, and it was drilled into me how he wanted them. 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. 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.”
According to Paul Page, a former member of the Royal Protection Command, who served from 1998 to 2004, he also attested to Andrew’s collection in an ITV documentary, mentioning that he observed “about 50 or 60 stuffed toys” adorning his bed. Page recalled, “There was a card, in a drawer and it was a picture of these bears all in situ. 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.”