Meat Loaf apparently had Prince Andrew’s number long before everyone else did, telling the Duke of York at a royal charity event in 1987 that he’d shove him into a moat after he got angry that his wife, Sarah Ferguson, was paying too much attention to the American rocker.
Fans are recalling Meat Loaf’s encounter with Prince Andrew after they learned of the “Bat Out of Hell” singer’s death Thursday, at age 74, reportedly due to COVID-19.
As Meat Loaf told The Guardian in 2003, he spent time with Andrew and Sarah in 1987 while appearing in a televised British charity event called “It’s a Royal Knockout.” The show featured members of the royal family and celebrities, competing in games as teams to support different causes.
Meat Loaf 'grabbed Prince Andrew and said 'I don't give a s**t who you are'' after the Duke 'tried to push the singer into a moat' in 1987https://t.co/mnyGWJOPdE
— Mail+ (@DailyMailUK) January 21, 2022
Overall, Meat Loaf, whose real name was Marvin Lee Aday, said doing the show was “a lot of fun,” but the Texas-born musician also recalled how he and Sarah were placed on the same team and how the Duchess of York paid him a lot of “attention.”
He told The Guardian: “Fergie wasn’t exactly flirting with me, but she was paying attention to me, and I think Andrew got a little — I could be wrong, I’m just reading into this — I think he got a little jealous.”
“Anyway, he tried to push me in the water,” Meat Loaf continued. “He tried to push me in the moat. So I turned around and I grabbed him and he goes, ‘You can’t touch me. I’m royal.’ I said, ‘Well you try to push me in the moat, Jack, I don’t give a (expletive) who you are, you’re goin’ in the moat.’”
In 1987, Andrew and Sarah were newlyweds, having tied the knot in a globally televised royal wedding the year before.
For Meat Loaf, manhandling Queen Elizabeth II’s reportedly favorite son didn’t do him any favors with the royal family.
“Oh, the Queen hates me,” Meat Loaf told The Guardian. Writer Tim Dowling cheekily noted that, “with hindsight,” the musician’s take-down of Andrew may have been “the point which it all started to go wrong for the royal family.”
It may have been when things started to go downhill for Andrew in particular. Before his marriage, Andrew had developed a reputation as “randy Andy.” Like second sons of British monarchs, he had no clearly defined role as future king, which supposedly gave him license to act like a “wastrel,” do his share of partying and date his share of actresses, models and other pretty young women, The Guardian reported in 2019.
One of Andrew’s early serious girlfriends, American actress Koo Stark, had a brief, uncredited role as a bridesmaid in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” the 1975 cult musical comedy that also featured Meat Loaf, who played Eddie.
After Andrew’s stint as a navy helicopter pilot in the 1982 Falklands war, he was briefly known as the “Warrior prince” and a genuine heartthrob, The Guardian reported. After their wedding, he and Sarah also enjoyed a brief honeymoon in terms of popularity with the British public. That would have been around the time they encountered Meat Loaf on “It’s a Royal Knockout.”
Andrew and Sarah’s marriage wasn’t happy, even though they have remained close friends. They separated in 1992, the same year that Charles and Diana split.
Like Meat Loaf, others who have encountered Andrew over the years picked up on the fact that he could be arrogant and self-indulgent. These are the same qualities that may have contributed to his ill-fated friendship with pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, and the trouble he’s in now, facing a civil trial over allegations that he had sex with one of Epstein’s sex trafficking victims and losing his HRH title and military titles.
As royal biographer Catherine Mayer told The Guardian: “(Andrew) very quickly went from being a sort of bachelor prince to being somebody who has no use, no purpose, spends money too obviously, takes too many flights, gets his bad nickname, gets married, gets divorced. He went from being the golden prince to being the embarrassing uncle in a series of very inevitable steps. And that was before he became as embarrassing as he is now.”
