Prince Andrew smiled and waved as he drove away from his royal hideaway Thursday — breaking cover days after finally accepting he’s been served the bombshell sex assault lawsuit against him, according to a report.
The scandal-scarred prince spent three weeks trying to avoid getting handed the documents by hiding out at Balmoral, the Scottish retreat of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, according to the Sun.
A lawyer for accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre directly accused Andrew, 61, of playing “a game of hide and seek behind palace walls.“
He even missed the birth of daughter Princess Beatrice’s first child, despite ex-wife Sarah Ferguson — who’d been in Balmoral with him — making the 500-mile dash to be there.
Andrew finally left the Queen’s 50,000-acre Scottish estate around 10 a.m. Thursday, having finally accepted that he had been legally served the lawsuit that accuses him of sexual assault amounting to first-degree rape, the Sun said.
He was spotted behind the wheel of a Range Rover as he drove away — with a huge smile on his face and even waving as he drove, according to photos shared by the UK paper.
He is expected to travel to Windsor, where he still lives with his ex-wife in their Royal Lodge — and will get to meet his new granddaughter for the first time, the paper said.
Andrew has always vehemently denied knowing Giuffre, who for years has said she was forced to have sex with him three times on the orders of late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and accused madam Ghislaine Maxwell.
Giuffre said the abuse started in 2001 when she was just 17, starting in Maxwell’s London home and then in Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and then his private Caribbean island.
After trying to avoid getting served the papers, Andrew is reportedly now prepping to “come out fighting” in the legal battle.
Epstein hanged himself in his Manhattan lockup in August 2019 while awaiting trial on serious sex charges.
Maxwell is in custody in Brooklyn awaiting trial for allegedly abusing underage girls and recruiting them for Epstein. She has pleaded not guilty.
