It’s just Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. On October 30, 2025, Buckingham Palace announced that it had begun a “formal process” to withdraw the “titles and honors” of Prince Andrew, implicated by his links to the American financier and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
He who was known as Elizabeth II’s favorite son will lose all his titles: Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, Baron Killyleagh, Knight of the Order of the Garter. Nor will he be able to reside in the Royal Lodge mansion, located a few kilometers from Windsor Castle. Instead, he will have to stay in a private residence in Norfolk, 180 kilometers from the capital.
This decision is closely linked to the revelations of Virginia Giuffre, whistleblower and accuser of Andrew Windsor, whose posthumous book Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice She was released in the United States on October 21. The latter committed suicide in April 2025.
“Today, an ordinary American girl from an ordinary American family brought down a British prince with her truth and her extraordinary courage,” Virginia Giuffre’s brother greets in tears on the BBC’s Newsnight program.
In her memoirs she maintains her story, accusing Andrew Windsor of three forced sexual encounters, at the request of Jeffrey Epstein, between 2001 and 2002. She was only 17 years old at the time. Facts that the brother of Carlos III has always denied.
The scandal is not only due to the alleged facts, but also to the alleged closeness between the royal family and the billionaire. A hypothesis supported by a photograph revealed in the British press on October 27. In it we can see Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Harvey Weinstein, immortalized in the gardens of the Royal Lodge during the eighteenth birthday of Beatrice, Andrew’s daughter, in 2006.
An “interview” to become a masseuse
Summer 2000. Virginia Roberts – her maiden name – is 16 years old and has a childhood marked by abuse. Daughter of a dysfunctional family, she ran away at age 11, took drugs and was kidnapped by a pedophile who gave her to a second man. Released by the FBI, she was picked up by her father, who worked at the Mar-a-Lago golf course, Donald Trump’s residence in Florida. It was there that he got a summer job as a wardrobe assistant, paying $9 an hour.
Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of British media mogul Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein’s reseller, sees the teenager. And he offers her an “interview” to become a masseuse working for the billionaire.
Virginia Roberts goes there the same day; her father drops her off at the Palm Beach property. Upstairs, discover a bedroom, a steam room and a marble-walled massage room. Jeffrey Epstein, 47, lies naked on a table. Ghislaine Maxwell guides the young woman in her actions, while she talks about her painful past.
The session takes a turn when the billionaire suddenly turns around and masturbates. Ghislaine Maxwell undresses the teenager, then in a state of shock, and immobilizes her. Virginia Roberts then suffered a first rape. Ghislaine Maxwell puts a $100 bill in her pocket as he walks her home.
“I was sexualized against my will and I survived by consenting. I was a person who sought to please, even when it cost me dearly. For 10 years, men hid the abuse to which they subjected me under a false veil of love. Epstein and Maxwell knew exactly how to exploit this same vein of dishonesty,” she wrote in her memoirs, excerpts of which were published in the British media.
Under the influence, Virginia Roberts returned to Jeffrey Epstein several times before becoming his “registered masseuse” for $200 per session. Then discover the billionaire’s properties: Palm Beach, New York, the ranch in New Mexico, the private island in the Bahamas. As a sales representative, you will also be responsible for recruiting other teenage girls. “During the years I spent with them, they lent me to dozens of rich and powerful people,” he explains. “I was regularly used and humiliated and, in some cases, strangled, beaten and ended up bleeding.”
“Like Cinderella”
In March 2001, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell took him to London. Ghislaine Maxwell tells her that she is going to meet “a prince charming, like Cinderella.” Andrés was then 41 years old. The evening begins in a nightclub – where the prince “dances badly” and makes her laugh – before ending in a bedroom. “Without any real emotional connection, he was in ecstasy, leaving me with my feelings of confusion,” says Virginia Giuffre in her autobiographical writings revealed by American justice.
Keep a photograph of this meeting. The prince hugs him, Ghislaine Maxwell smiles at his side. This image, published in 2011 in the mail on sundayIt is more than revealing. But at that time no one started working on the business in the United States.
A year after meeting Prince Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein asked young Virginia to hire a masseuse in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It was there where he met Robert Giuffre, an Australian martial arts teacher to whom he told the story of his life and with whom he fell in love. They then leave for Australia to escape from the businessman.
Legal battles
It wasn’t until 2005 that Miami police investigated Jeffrey Epstein’s actions. The latter was sentenced by Florida courts to eighteen months in prison for soliciting sexual relations with a minor. He will only execute thirteen and the FBI will bury the case.
Four years later, Virginia Giuffre embarked on a legal battle, attacking Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell for civil sex trafficking. He did it under a pseudonym and obtained $500,000 in compensation.
Supported by those close to her, Virginia Giuffre decides to come out of the shadows and share her story with the British weekly. mail on sunday in 2011. While continuing her fight in court, in 2015 she created an association to help victims, Victims Refuse Silence (renamed Speak Out, Act, Reclaim in 2021).
An obstinacy that led the federal justice system to reopen the case in 2019, also relaunched by an investigation of The Miami Herald. Jeffrey Epstein is arrested. And the name of Virginia Giuffre becomes inseparable from this matter.
A “time bomb”
Until then, Prince Andrew was not worried. For a long time, Isabel II’s favorite son had the protection of the monarch. He also passed on the title of Duke of York, previously held by his father George VI, a sign, if necessary, of his great affection.
“Over the years, while Andrew accumulated scandals and numerous complaints about his behavior were addressed to the sovereign, nothing was done,” emphasizes Andrew Lownie, author of a biography of the prince. The queen was said to be “blinded” by her attachment.
However, a disastrous interview given to the BBC in 2019 about his links to Jeffrey Epstein earned him his first disgrace. Banished from “the firm” – the nickname of the royal family – and excluded from all royal functions, he nevertheless retained his titles and his lordship.
The situation becomes increasingly unsustainable and the British Crown falters. Virginia Giuffre decides to file a complaint against him for sexual assault in 2021. A year later, in February 2022, a financial settlement worth 12 million pounds is closed. If Prince Andrew persists and proclaims his innocence, the matter will cause a stir in the media around the world.
The disappearance of the queen, which occurred in September of the same year, further precipitated the fall of the youngest son: Charles III, who did not show him the same clemency. “It’s as if he left a time bomb for Charles,” said a palace source. Sunday schedule. “Everyone always said the Queen was very conscientious, and she was, but here she seriously failed in her duty.”
An inaccessible guy
The decision to strip Andrew Windsor of his titles was down to both Charles III and his son William. The heir to the throne, determined to protect the image of the monarchy, rejected any complacency towards this hostile uncle. After Andrew renounced his title as Duke of York in mid-October, the Prince of Wales announced through various media that he was “not satisfied” and would ban him from attending his future coronation.
The issue also turns out to be a neighborhood problem. Although William, Kate and their children would soon move into a mansion in Windsor, it seemed impossible to live near this “radioactive” uncle.
The threat to the Corona has become even more palpable in recent days. During a visit to Lichfield Cathedral on 27 October, a man questioned Charles III about this matter. “How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein? Did you ask the police to cover it up?” Then he asked. The exchange, filmed by numerous British media outlets, was later broadcast on television.
A cost “too high to bear”
In the Buckingham Palace statement, Charles III and Camilla “would like to make clear that their thoughts and deepest sympathy have been and will continue to be with the victims and survivors of all forms of abuse.”
Virginia Giuffre, for her part, ended her life in April 2025. She was then in the middle of a divorce process with Robert Giuffre, whom she accused of repeated violence, and was arguing over custody of her three children. Neither her ex-husband nor her father believe in her suicide, so the hypothesis of an external act is raised.
“She committed suicide, after being a victim of sexual assault and sex trafficking her entire life,” her family wrote. “The cost of the attacks was so significant that it became too heavy for Virginia to bear. We know she is now with the angels.”
In reaction to the announcement of Andrew Windsor’s dismissal, Virginia Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts, called for the opening of an investigation, ensuring that the former prince “must be put behind bars.”
Source: BFM TV
