Prince Andrew is “dismayed” that his name has been “dragged back into” the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, friends of the prince have said.
Andrew’s name flashed across front pages in Britain this weekend after Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly included him among “100 men” she discussed in a jailhouse meeting with the Department of Justice.
The Mail on Sunday, which broke the Andrew angle to the story, gave no details of what Maxwell said about Andrew, or how long she spoke about him. Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, did not return a request for comment from the Daily Beast, but had previously said Ghislaine was holding nothing back. The DoJ likewise declined to say what Maxwell said, or about whom.
ADVERTISEMENT
Andrew’s role in the scandal also resurfaced when Donald Trump said this week that Epstein “stole” Virginia Giuffre from his Mar-a-Lago club, where she was employed in the spa.
Giuffre accused Andrew of raping her three times and secured a reputed $12m out of court settlement from him. She alleged that she was trafficked by Epstein to hundreds of other men for sex. She suffered with severe mental health difficulties and died by suicide earlier this year.
Andrew has always denied meeting Giuffre and has suggested the famous photograph showing them together was fake. The Daily Beast revealed in 2022, shortly before she settled with Andrew for an undisclosed sum believed to be several million dollars, that Giuffre had lost the original photo.
Friends of the duke told the Daily Beast that Andrew is “dismayed” to be dragged back into the Epstein scandal yet again.
“The duke knows he made mistakes and has accepted responsibility,” one said. “He has stepped down from the royal family and no longer has any public role. All he is doing is trying to get on with his life in private. Just a few weeks ago it was being reported the FBI investigation was closed—now it seems to be open again. Of course, he and his family are dismayed his name is being dragged back into it, but he is well aware that it comes with the territory and he has been through it all before.”
Another friend said Andrew is living “quietly” at Royal Lodge—the palatial Windsor home his brother King Charles tried and failed to evict him from last year. “He does his horse riding, works, does a bit of maintenance around the place. Other than that, it’s all about his children and grandchildren, like anyone else his age. He’s not hosting wild parties. It’s monstrous that this is all being brought up again. It bears repeating that Andrew has never been found guilty of any crime. He would have fought Giuffre’s claims in court. He was ordered to settle by his family, who didn’t want the scandal.”
One of Prince Andrew’s oldest friends told the Daily Beast that it was not surprising the Virginia Giuffre story continues to haunt him.
Lady Victoria Hervey, who briefly dated Andrew and has been a long-standing friend of the prince, told the Daily Beast: “This story is not going to go away until Andrew is exonerated for a crime he clearly did not commit, and those people behind the setup have been fully exposed as liars. Virginia’s suicide was tragic, but I’m afraid that doesn’t change the fact that everything she said about being forced to have sex with Andrew was fabricated—just as her outlandish claims about being forced to have sex with Alan Dershowitz were revealed to be. I said this publicly and regularly while she was alive, and she never sued me or challenged me. The whole case against Andrew was a gigantic shakedown.”
Ghislaine’s brother, Ian Maxwell, made similar claims about Giuffre on a British radio station on Friday.
That Andrew’s long and controversial friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell is coming back to haunt him just weeks after reports that the FBI had closed their inquiries into him is yet another extraordinary new twist in what has become one of the most damaging associations in royal history.
Andrew said in an infamous 2019 BBC Newsnight interview that he met Maxwell “when she was at university in the U.K.” By the late 1990s, she had introduced him to Epstein, and the trio moved in elite social circles together. A photograph shown during Maxwell’s trial captured her and Epstein at a “lunch hut” on the Balmoral estate in 1999—a trip Andrew arranged and is believed to have arranged. Balmoral is considered one of the monarchy’s most private and protected spaces. Epstein and Maxwell’s presence there caused widespread unease over how close they came to the heart of the British establishment.
Giuffre claimed Maxwell recruited her into Epstein’s trafficking network when she was 17, after spotting her at Mar-a-Lago.
This week, Trump acknowledged this for the first time, telling reporters who asked if she was one of the employees the now-deceased Epstein took from him: “I think she worked at the spa. I think that was one of the people. He stole her.”
Trump added: “Other people would come and complain, this guy is taking people from the spa. I didn’t know that. And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said: ‘Listen, we don’t want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa, I don’t want you to take our people.’ And he was fine, and then not too long after that, he did it again. And I said: out of here!”
Giuffre alleged that Maxwell and Epstein forced her to have sex with powerful men, including Andrew. Giuffre said she had sex with Andrew three times, including once in Maxwell’s London townhouse, where the alleged photo showing Andrew with his arm around Giuffre’s bare midriff was taken.
Andrew, in the Newsnight interview, claimed to have “no recollection of ever meeting” Giuffre and questioned the photo’s authenticity, saying, “I have absolutely no memory of that photograph ever being taken.” He also said that had he been out in London, “I would’ve worn a suit and tie,” unlike the casual clothing in the image.
He further dismissed Giuffre’s account of him sweating profusely while dancing at Tramp nightclub, saying a medical condition from an “overdose of adrenaline” during the Falklands War left him unable to sweat—an explanation widely mocked at the time.
In 2022, he settled Giuffre’s civil suit in the U.S. without admitting liability. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 on multiple counts of sex trafficking.
Andrew Lownie, a writer who later this month will publish Entitled, an investigative biography of Prince Andrew and his wife, Sarah Ferguson, told the Daily Beast: “I don’t think Ghislaine Maxwell is about to give up Andrew. I imagine she will name a few Democrats and other people unpopular with the current administration. Of course, it’s not helpful for Andrew that every time Ghislaine or Epstein or Giuffre are mentioned that he gets named, but he really should be much more concerned about the scandals of his financial behavior, as opposed to his sexual behavior, emerging. That’s what I focus on in my book.”
The duke no longer has a formal press spokesperson. A communications expert who previously worked with him did not return a request for comment.
