Prince Andrew is scaling back travel and facing an uncertain future as he steps away from the royal role he has embraced during his entire adult life.

The 59-year-old prince has suffered numerous setbacks in the six days since the broadcast of a disastrous TV interview from Buckingham Palace. During that interview, he defended his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died in a New York prison in August in what New York’s medical examiner ruled was a suicide.

The Times newspaper said in an editorial Friday that the debacle demonstrates the need for “urgent reform” of the royal household. The paper urged Andrew’s older brother and heir to the throne, Prince Charles, to take steps to streamline and make the royal family “more modest.”

LONDON (AP)