Ghislaine Maxwell, sentenced in June in New York to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking underage girls on behalf of the late American financier Jeffrey Epstein, claims in an interview that a photo showing Prince Andrew with a 17-year-old girl is “a fake”.
The former British socialite gave an interview from her prison in the United States to TalkTV, a British television. This will air on Monday night, but the excerpts were released on Sunday.
This interview mentions the photo, which had been widely reported in the media, showing Prince Andrew, King Charles III’s brother, and Virginia Giuffre, holding each other by the waist, all smiles, with Ghislaine Maxwell in the background.
friendly agreement
American Virginia Giuffre accuses the prince of sexually assaulting her three times in 2001, when she was 17, in London, New York and the US Virgin Islands. She claimed to have met him through Epstein.
Andrew, a friend of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, struck an amicable settlement with her in February 2022, paying millions of dollars, allowing her to avoid a civil lawsuit in New York, which would have been extremely embarrassing for the British royal family.
But the prince, who fell out of favor after these sexual assault allegations, has always disputed the allegations and even claimed that he never met Virginia Giuffre.
The photo is “false”, says Ghislaine Maxwell in the excerpt from the interview. “I don’t believe for a second that she’s real, in fact, I’m sure she’s not,” she adds.
“There was never an original and there is no photograph. I have only seen a photocopy,” he says again.
withdrawal from agreement
In an interview with the BBC in 2019, Prince Andrew had already questioned the authenticity of the photo that showed him with the young woman. Furthermore, according to British newspapers Sun On Sunday Y mail on sundayAndrew is considering legal options to try to cancel the deal with Virginia Giuffre.
Andrew “will seek to void the multi-million dollar settlement with his sexual accuser, following the failure of his lawsuit against a high-profile American lawyer,” the tabloid writes. Sun. The Duke of York is said to be in contact with his American lawyers.
“He hopes to get a retraction, or even an apology, which could allow him to resume his royal duties,” the newspaper writes.
According to an anonymous source quoted in the tabloid, Andrew “never wanted to make a deal and always maintained his innocence.” Andrew, Elizabeth II’s third son, was banned from any official public appearance and stripped of his military titles after this affair.
He is the most unpopular member of the royal family: according to a December YouGov poll, 86% of Britons have a negative opinion of him.
Source: BFM TV
