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Newly released Jeffrey Epstein emails have cast further doubt on Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s account of when he cut ties with the child sex offender and his denials about meeting his accuser Virginia Giuffre.
In March 2011, four months after he later claimed to have ended his relationship with Epstein, the former prince told him and the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell “I can’t take any more of this” in response to allegations put forward by the Mail on Sunday.
Another email from Epstein in 2011 appears to confirm the veracity of a photograph of the then Prince Andrew holding a then 17-year-old Giuffre by the waist in 2001.
In the email Esptein said: “Yes, she was on my plane and yes, she had her photo taken with Andrew as many of my employees have.”
Mountbatten Windsor, who denies any wrongdoing, suggested in a 2019 BBC Newsnight interview that the photograph may have been doctored and that he had “absolutely no memory” of it being taken.
In her posthumous memoir, Giuffre alleged she was forced to have sex with the former prince three times – once at Maxwell’s home in London, once at Epstein’s address in Manhattan, and once on the disgraced financier’s private island, Little St James.
The latest emails were among thousands of documents from Epstein’s estate published by the US House oversight committee on Wednesday.
One email shows Mountbatten Windsor asking Epstein how he planned to respond to the Mail on Sunday’s inquiry. Epstein said: “Im [sic] not sure how to respond, the only person she didn’t have sex with was Elvis.”
The former prince appeared to take up the issue with Maxwell in a separate chain, saying: “Hey there! What’s all this? I don’t know anything about this! You must SAY so please. This has NOTHING to do with me. I can’t take any more of this.”
Another email from Mountbatten Windsor about the press query said: “Please make sure that every statement or legal letter states clearly that I am NOT involved and that I knew and know NOTHING about any of these allegations.”
Epstein appeared keen to ask a journalist to investigate “Andrew’s accuser” because Buckingham Palace would “love it”. In an email in July 2011, he said: “Send a reporter or reporters to investigate ... the palace would love it, the girl in the photo, was nothing more than a telephone answerer, she was never 15, according to her version she worked for trump [sic], first at that age, at Mar-a-Lago. It’s ridiculous.”
In an exchange with a different journalist in 2011, Epstein appeared to discuss Giuffre and her photograph with Andrew. Epstein wrote: “Total horseshit, the daily mail [sic] paid her money, they admitted it, with the statement that it took money to coax out the truth.
“Yes she was on my plane, and yes she had her picture taken with Andrew, as many of my employees have.
“I have never misled you, this girl is a total liar, they [sic] authorities should check her australian [sic] immigration form, you could talk to dershowitz [sic]. I will ask if they will cooperate – Prince people.”
Andrew’s links to Epstein eventually led to King Charles dramatically stripping him of his titles, putting an end to his public life.
The move followed the publication of Giuffre’s memoirs, and the US government’s release of documents from Epstein’s estate.
The former prince denies all the allegations made against him.
Epstein took his own life in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 after being convicted of sex trafficking.
