Published on
For 15 minutes, the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo had a new neighbour: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Activists hung the unflattering arrest photo of the disgraced British royal at the Louvre museum in Paris to show “how the world will remember” the former Prince.
On Sunday, the UK-based anti-billionaire group Everyone Hates Elon mounted the photo on a wall of the famous French museum, alongside a caption naming the picture as “He’s Sweating Now” – a reference to the “nuclear explosion level bad” 2019 Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis, in which the former royal claimed that he couldn’t sweat and therefore accuser Virginia Giuffre was lying about seeing him perspire at a nightclub.
Guiffre, who died by suicide last year, accused Mountbatten-Windsor of having sex with her when she was a minor being trafficked by paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The photograph shows Mountbatten-Windsor slumped in the back seat of a Range Rover after leaving a Norfolk police station, hours after his arrest on 19 February on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
He spent 11 hours in police custody. It was the first arrest of a senior member of the British royal family since that of King Charles I in 1647.
Everyone Hates Elon shared a video on Instagram of its members mounting the photo, with the caption: “They say ‘hang it in the Louvre’. So we did.”
“We thought we’d show the former Prince Andrew how the world will remember him by putting up this iconic arrest photo at the Louvre,” the group told Reuters. “Let’s hope this is just the start. Justice for all Epstein survivors.”
The photo was taken down 15 minutes later by Louvre staff.
Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested after the US government released millions of documents related to Epstein. They included copies of emails that are alleged to show Mountbatten-Windsor sharing confidential information with Epstein while working as a British trade envoy.
Mountbatten-Windsor continues to deny any wrongdoing.
The former Duke of York is still eighth in line to the throne and it was reported last week that Sir Keir Starmer’s Government is considering an Act of Parliament to remove Andrew from the line of succession, thereby preventing him from ever becoming king.