Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor says he has “no recollection” of the photo, or the girl in it.<\/p>\n
He’s repeatedly suggested it might be a fake.<\/p>\n
But 24 years after it was purportedly taken, this simple film image continues to haunt the former prince.<\/p>\n
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The photo shows former prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell. (AFP: US District Court \u2014 Southern District of New York)<\/p>\n
Allegedly snapped in 2001 by deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, it shows a younger Mountbatten-Windsor with his arm around a girl’s waist.<\/p>\n
Sexual assault\u00a0support lines:1800 Respect National Helpline<\/a>: 1800 737 732Lifeline<\/a> (24-hour crisis line): 131 114Full Stop Australia<\/a>: 1800 385 578Bravehearts<\/a>: counselling and support for survivors of child sexual abuse: 1800\u00a0272\u00a0831Child Wise<\/a>: counselling provider: 1800\u00a0991\u00a0099<\/p>\n Epstein’s associate, convicted child sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, stands grinning to the side.<\/p>\n The girl, then-17-year-old Virginia Roberts Giuffre, would years later allege she had sex with the former prince three times after being trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell.<\/p>\n Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied the allegations, reaching an out-of-court settlement with Roberts Giuffre in 2022, which contained neither an admission of liability nor an apology.<\/p>\n Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor says he has “no recollection” of the photo. (AP: Steve Parsons\/Pool\/File photo)<\/p>\n But a newly released email from Epstein<\/a> appears to contradict the former prince’s repeated denials he was ever photographed with Roberts Giuffre.<\/p>\n “Yes, she was on my plane, and yes, she had her picture taken with Andrew, as many of my employees have,” reads Epstein’s email, written in July 2011 after the photo was first published.<\/p>\n Here is a closer look at the infamous photo Mountbatten-Windsor can’t outrun.<\/p>\n ‘I was going to meet a handsome prince!’<\/p>\n Roberts Giuffre, who took her own life earlier this year, wrote in her posthumous memoir, Nobody’s Girl,<\/a> about the day the photo was allegedly taken.<\/p>\n If you or anyone you know needs help:1800 Respect National Helpline<\/a>: 1800 737 732Men’s Referral Service<\/a>: 1300 766 491Lifeline<\/a> (24-hour crisis line): 13 11 14Victims of Crime Helpline<\/a>: 1800 819 817Full Stop Australia<\/a>: 1800 385 578Bravehearts<\/a>: counselling and support for survivors of child sexual abuse: 1800\u00a0272\u00a0831Child Wise<\/a>: counselling provider: 1800\u00a0991\u00a0099<\/p>\n It was March 2001 and she was woken by Maxwell, who declared in a sing-song voice that “just like Cinderella, I was going to meet a handsome prince!”<\/p>\n Introduced to the royal that evening in the entry way of Maxwell’s London home, she said she knew she had to capture the moment.<\/p>\n “My mom would never forgive me if I met someone as famous as Prince Andrew and didn’t pose for a picture,” she wrote in her memoir.<\/p>\n Roberts Giuffre said she ran to get a disposable camera from her room and handed it to Epstein.<\/p>\n “I remember the prince putting his arm around my waist as Maxwell grinned beside me. Epstein snapped the photo,” she recalled.<\/p>\n Roberts Giuffre said she later took the camera to a one-hour photo developer near her Florida home, which branded the print with the date it was developed: March 13, 2001.<\/p>\n Virginia Roberts Giuffre detailed the moment the photo was taken in her posthumous memoir. (ABC News: Brendan Mounter)<\/p>\n She showed the four-by-six image to her then-boyfriend.<\/p>\n “We had no idea what a commotion this photo would later cause,” she said.<\/p>\n ‘The duke has quite chubby fingers’<\/p>\n The photo was first published by The Mail on Sunday in 2011 after the publication tracked down Roberts Giuffre in Australia.<\/p>\n They paid a combined $US160,000 ($245,154) for the photo and two interviews.<\/p>\n It has since been recirculated in countless media reports, becoming an infamous symbol of Roberts Giuffre’s allegations against the former prince.<\/p>\n Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was interviewed by the BBC’s Emily Maitlis in 2019. (BBC)<\/p>\n In a disastrous 2019 interview with BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis, Mountbatten-Windsor dismissed the image, saying he had “no recollection” of then or ever meeting Roberts Giuffre.<\/p>\n He also claimed the image might have been doctored.<\/p>\n Prince Andrew’s disastrous BBC interview<\/a><\/p>\n Prince Andrew’s BBC interview over his relationship to Jeffrey Epstein may be a decision the Royals will regret, writes Bridget Brennan.<\/p>\n “From the investigations that we’ve done, you can’t prove whether or not that photograph is faked or not because it is a photograph of a photograph of a photograph,” he said.<\/p>\n The then-prince claimed he had “never seen Epstein with a camera” in his life, and questioned whether the photo was taken in London because in it, he was wearing “travelling clothes”.<\/p>\n “When I go out in London, I wear a suit and a tie,” he said.<\/p>\n He also questioned whether the hand around Roberts Giuffre’s waist was his.<\/p>\n Virginia Roberts Giuffre died by suicide in April. (Reuters: Shannon Stapleton)<\/p>\n This claim was repeated in a 2019 story by the London Evening Standard.<\/p>\n “Look at his fingers in the photo,” an unnamed source said.<\/p>\n “The duke has quite chubby fingers, they don’t look right and nor does the height of the duke and the girl.”<\/p>\n Where is the photo now?<\/p>\n In a 2016 deposition<\/a> as part of a defamation lawsuit she filed against Maxwell, Roberts Giuffre said she briefly lent the photo to the FBI in 2011.<\/p>\n She claimed she last saw it before packing up to move to Australia, adding it may have been at her then-home in Cairns or in storage boxes at her in-laws’ house in Sydney.<\/p>\n Virginia Giuffre, in her own words<\/a><\/p>\n She exposed the elite and broke her silence \u2014 now she’s gone, but her story refuses to die.<\/p>\n Mountbatten-Windsor’s legal team reportedly asked for access to the original picture<\/a> in 2022 so its authenticity could be verified by experts.<\/p>\n But the photo had been lost<\/a>, according to The Daily Beast, with Roberts Giuffre’s lawyers saying they didn’t know where it was and had never seen the original.<\/p>\n Mountbatten-Windsor’s lawyers argued that this strengthened the former prince’s claims the image was doctored.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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