Ghislaine Maxwell admits notorious pic of Andrew and Virginia Giuffre is actual
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor said he was at Pizza Express the night he was said to have met Virginia, who claimed she was forced to have sex with the ex-Royal by his paedo pal Jeffrey Epstein
Maxwell, seen in the background grinning, said this photo is real(Image: US District Court – Southern Dis)
Ghislaine Maxwell admitted the infamous photo of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor with his arm around his chief accuser Virginia Giuffre is real.
Maxwell – serving a 20 year jail term for helping ex-lover Jeffrey Epstein abuse young girls – said the image was taken in her London home. The revelation was made in a bombshell email from Maxwell in 2015, which was released in the latest trove of Epstein files.
She said she was “stating for the record as fact” that not only had she introduced the disgraced former prince to Virginia – then 17 – but that the photo was taken at her own property that same night.
Andrew claimed in a car crash BBC interview in 2019 that he “could not” have had sex with the teen on the night she accused him as he was at a Pizza Express in Woking, Surrey at the time.
But in the unearthed email, Maxwell – seen grinning in the background of the photo – wrote: “In 2001 I was in London when (redacted) met a number of friends of mine including Prince Andrew.
“A photograph was taken as I imagine she wanted to show it to friends and family. I never asked (redacted) to give him a massage.”
She added: “I am stating for the record as fact. Prince Andrew came to my house to visit me – (redacted) was in the house and they did meet.”
Andrew has consistently and vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
Maxwell made the claims in a statement she’d drafted to hit back at reports of mounting allegations in the press. She sent it in an email to Epstein asking for his approval.
In it, she claimed she had “no knowledge” of Virginia – “having sexual activity” with Andrew or any other “famous people”. She added: “The salacious claims she makes are untrue and made purely for financial gain.”
The emails were sent days after Virginia first launched her legal claim in the US in January 2015 in which she accused Maxwell of recruiting her as a sex slave.
In Andrew’s disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis, he notoriously claimed he was not at Maxwell’s home but at a Pizza Express in Woking that night.
When asked how he would remember a meal at Pizza Express 18 years later, he said: “Because going to Pizza Express in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do, a very unusual thing for me to do.
“I’ve only been to Woking a couple of times and I remember it weirdly distinctly.”
And he later said Virginia’s testimony that he “sweated profusely” as they danced together at nightclub Tramp was untrue because of a rare medical condition which prevented him perspiring.
Virginia took her own life aged 41 last year and her posthumous memoir accused Andrew of raping her on three occasions.
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