Prince Andrew, Royal Family dogged by scandal after release of Virginia Giuffre memoir

CTV royal commentator Afua Hagen on fallout for the Royal Family as an autobiography from Jeffrey Epstein’s accuser puts Prince Andrew under the spotlight.

LONDON — The British royal family is once again under intense scrutiny as a memoir by Virginia Giuffre, one of the most outspoken accusers of Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein, hits bookstores Tuesday.

“Nobody’s Girl” is being published posthumously after Giuffre died by suicide in April.

Giuffre had for years accused Andrew of sexually abusing her on multiple occasions when she was under 18 years old and a victim of sexual trafficking by convicted sex offender Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

While her book doesn’t break new ground, it has thrown fuel on a series of new accusations against Andrew, who is trying to control the damage to the monarchy from the long-running scandal over his friendship with Epstein.

The 65-year-old prince said last week that he will stop using his titles, including Duke of York, but reiterated that he “vigorously” denies Giuffre’s claims.

In her book -- which leapt to No. 1 on Amazon’s bestseller list on Monday before its publication -- Giuffre recounts details of how she first met Andrew in March 2001, and says the royal’s staff tried to hire “internet trolls” to hassle her when she sued him years later.

Accounts of three interactions with Andrew

Giuffre long alleged that she was recruited at age 16 by Epstein and Maxwell, who introduced her to Andrew in London in March 2001 when she was 17. She said she was forced to have sex with the royal on three separate occasions.

She wrote that on the day she first met Andrew, Maxwell woke her up and told her it was going to be a special day and that “just like Cinderella” she will meet “a handsome prince.”

She said when they met, the prince told her that “my daughters are just a little younger than you.” She said Maxwell instructed her to “do for him what you do for Jeffrey,” adding: “I knew better than to question her orders.” She said that Epstein gave her $15,000 soon after for having sex with Andrew.

Giuffre wrote that she had sex with the royal a second time at Epstein’s house in New York about a month later, and a third time on Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean along with about eight other girls who she said all appeared to be under 18.

2022 lawsuit settlement

Giuffre previously detailed how Epstein, Maxwell and Andrew allegedly forced her to have sex with the prince against her will in a lawsuit that she filed New York in 2021.

Andrew reached an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre in 2022 for an undisclosed sum. While he didn’t admit wrongdoing, Andrew did acknowledge Giuffre’s suffering as a victim of sex trafficking and agreed to make a donation to her charity.

Of that settlement, Giuffre wrote: “After casting doubt on my credibility for so long -- Prince Andrew’s team had even gone so far as to try to hire internet trolls to hassle me -- the Duke of York owed me a meaningful apology as well.”

“We would never get a confession, of course. That’s what settlements are designed to avoid,” she added. “But we were trying for the next best thing: a general acknowledgment of what I’d been through.”

New allegations

Andrew, the second son of the late Queen Elizabeth II, had already stepped down from all of his public duties and charity roles in 2019, after an attempt to dispel reports about his friendship with Epstein backfired badly.

The prince was widely criticized for the BBC interview, in which he offered unbelievable explanations for his continued relationship with the disgraced financier. He also denied that he had ever met Giuffre or had sexual contact with her, and said he had “absolutely no memory” of a now infamous photograph showing him with his arm around her waist in 2001.

Andrew also said in the same interview that he had cut off contact with Epstein in December 2010.

Last week, British newspapers published an email that purportedly showed that the royal had remained in contact with Epstein longer than he had admitted. In the note, reportedly from Feb. 28, 2011, Andrew wrote they were “in this together” and would “have to rise above it.”

Separately, London’s Metropolitan Police force said that it was looking into a report in the Mail on Sunday that Andrew in 2011 asked one of his police bodyguards to find out if Giuffre had a criminal record.

Calls for more action from the government and palace

Buckingham Palace and the U.K. government are under pressure to formally strip Andrew of his dukedom and princely title, and kick him out the 30-room mansion near Windsor Castle where he lives.

On Tuesday, lawmakers from the Scottish National Party lodged a parliamentary motion calling for legislation to officially remove Andrew’s titles.

“It’s about time Prince Andrew took himself off to live in private and make his own way in life,” said Conservative lawmaker Robert Jenrick. “He has disgraced himself, he has embarrassed the royal family time and again.”

Ghostwriter Amy Wallace, who cowrote the memoir, said Andrew also should agree to testify in the U.S. about what he knew of Epstein’s crimes.

Giuffre “deserves all credit for whatever role she played in forcing Prince Andrew to relinquish a few more of his titles,” Wallace told the BBC. “But she deserves all credit even more than that for being brave enough to stand up to say, `This isn’t right.”'

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Sylvia Hui, The Associated Press