It remains to be seen whether Prince Andrew will face further sanctions over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and alleged sexual abuse of Virginia Giuffre. But what is clear as his accuser’s posthumous memoir hits the shelves is that Giuffre was “determined to share her story”, exposing the power and corruption that left “victims, like her, scarred after years of alleged abuse”, said The Independent.
In her 367-page book, co-authored with writer Amy Wallace, Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year aged 41, lays out her claims in “harrowing and sometimes explicit” detail. This is what we have learned.
Epstein and Maxwell’s horrific abuse
There were times Giuffre feared for her life, said London’s The Standard. During her two-year association with Epstein, she alleges he subjected her to sadomasochistic sex that caused her “so much pain that I prayed I would black out”. During this time she writes that she was passed around “scores of powerful, wealthy people” and repeatedly beaten and abused. “I believed that I might die as a sex slave,” she said.
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Ghislaine Maxwell is described as a “molester with posh manners and an aristocratic pedigree” who played “den mother to Epstein’s family of dysfunctional girls”.
Giuffre also writes about her first meeting with the British socialite, who approached her while she was working as a teenager in a Mar-a-Lago spa. She describes being invited to Epstein’s house, where Maxwell allegedly instructed her to “do what I do”, before the pair sexually abused her. “The disappointment was excruciating. I blamed myself. ‘Is sex all anyone will ever want from me’,” she writes.
‘Brazen request’
Epstein and Maxwell “pleaded” with Giuffre to “have our baby”, said the New York Post. The proposal is said to have come with the promise of “round-the-clock nannies, a mansion and a $200,000 per month allowance”, but Giuffre would have to hand over all legal rights to the child.
Everything about the “brazen request felt wrong”, she writes. “There was no way I wanted to bring a child into the world for them to raise. What if the baby were female? Was the plan for Epstein and Maxwell to have me bring that little girl up until she reached puberty, then hand her over for them to abuse?”
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An ‘orgy’ with Prince Andrew
Giuffre details her first meeting, aged 17, with Prince Andrew, then 41, at Maxwell’s London townhouse, said The Independent. “Just like Cinderella I was going to meet a handsome prince.”
At the house (the setting of the notorious photograph of the pair), she alleges Maxwell told her “you are to do for him what you do for Jeffrey”. They later had sex for the first time. Prince Andrew was, she said, “friendly enough, but still entitled – as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright”. Afterwards, he thanked her “in his clipped British accent”.
Around a month later, she alleges they had sex for a second time at Epstein’s home in Manhattan. The third and final time they had sex was during an “orgy” with Epstein involving “approximately eight other girls”, whom Giuffre describes as looking underage, on a private island in the Caribbean. Epstein “laughed about how they couldn’t really communicate, saying they are the easiest girls to get along with”.
Prince Andrew, who reached a financial settlement with Giuffre in 2022 with no acknowledgement of guilt, has consistently and strenuously denied any wrongdoing, and claims they “never had any sexual contact”.
Her reaction to the New York photos
Giuffre remembers seeing the photographs of Andrew with Epstein in New York’s Central Park that were “published in newspapers around the world in 2011”, said the BBC. Epstein had recently been released from prison for prostituting minors. “I was of course revolted to see two of my abusers together, out for a stroll,” she writes. “But mostly I was amazed that a member of the royal family would be stupid enough to appear in public with Epstein.”
In the final chapter of her memoir, Giuffre writes about her hopes of “preventing others suffering”, said The Independent. Dedicating the book to her “Survivor Sisters and anyone who has suffered sexual abuse”, she says the money she received in her settlement from Prince Andrew went towards setting up her foundation for preventing human trafficking.
While she doesn’t regret making her allegations public, she writes that the “constant telling and retelling has been extremely painful and exhausting. With this book, I seek to free myself from my past.”
Irenie Forshaw is the features editor at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.
