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Princess Beatrice won’t have wedding televised as Prince Andrew fallout continues

Princess Beatrice and fiance Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in London are planning their nuptials.

Princess Beatrice and fiance Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in London are planning their nuptials. Photo: Getty

In the latest blow to the royal family after the Prince Andrew Newsnight debacle, Princess Beatrice has been refused the chance to have her wedding televised later this year.

UK broadcasters the BBC and ITV have both confirmed they will not cover Beatrice and property developer Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi’s nuptials as they happen.

The BBC announced it would provide “news coverage” of Beatrice’s big day but would not interrupt normal programming to cover the royal wedding, as it did with the weddings of princes Harry and William.

The snub to Beatrice and her father-of-one fiance is perhaps even more severe than it sounds, given the national broadcaster is offered telecast rights to all royal occasions for free, according to The Independent.

ITV screened Princess Eugenie’s wedding in October 2018. It drew an audience of three million, reportedly after intense lobbying from her father Andrew, 59.

But this time around, with the York family enveloped in scandal, the network said it “definitely won’t” cover the ceremony in its daytime schedule.

“As of December, Andrew still reportedly planned on walking his daughter down the aisle, so perhaps the broadcasters had no choice but to avoid the wedding altogether,” according to Vanity Fair.

Royal nuptials are normally ratings gold. Twenty-four million people in Britain watched the 2011 Prince William and Kate Middleton ceremony, and 13 million tuned in to see Prince Harry marry actress Meghan Markle in 2017.

Mystery still surrounds when and where Beatrice, 31, and Edoardo, 37, will tie the knot, but it it is tipped to be late May or early June.

Shortly after the Queen’s granddaughter and the multi-millionaire announced their engagement in September, the happy news and planning around it was overshadowed by global media coverage of Andrew’s alleged involvement in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

After being accused by Epstein ‘sex slave’ Virginia Roberts Giuffre of having sex three times with her when she was 17, the Duke of York admitted on Newsnight he “let the side down” with his friendship with the late pedophile.

He claimed he could not have had sex with Ms Giuffre because on the day in question he took Beatrice to a suburban Pizza Express.

After Ms Giuffre described how he sweated profusely over her while they allegedly danced at Tramp nightclub in London, Andrew said a medical condition prevented him from sweating.

The car crash interview saw the duke, who has consistently denied all allegations against him, exiled indefinitely from public life as corporate sponsors abandoned him.

Princess Beatrice Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi

Beatrice and Edoardo join the royal family at church on Christmas Day. Photo: Getty

Andrew was a notable no-show at Beatrice and Edoardo’s December engagement party at London’s Chiltern Firehouse, leaving his ex wife Sarah Ferguson to fly the parental flag.

There have also been multiple reports the couple is scaling back plans for a traditional royal wedding because of the father of the bride’s fall from grace.

In the early weeks after her father’s public life imploded, the princess was said to be “in tears every day” because she encouraged his BBC sit-down.

Now, Beatrice is possibly planning to wed outside of Britain or super privately to avoid negative scrutiny of her family on her wedding day, according to reports.

Like Meghan and Harry, Eugenie said her vows to wine merchant Jack Brooksbank at Windsor Castle, and Beatrice had been tipped to do the same.

“It was our understanding she very much wanted a wedding in the UK, although I understand that a wedding overseas in now an option on the table,” royals commentator Katie Nicholl said.

“I think what’s happened with her father now pretty much guarantees that it will be just that – low key and a focus on family and private, rather than a big royal wedding.”

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