Virginia Giuffre claims Prince Andrew’s legal team tried to hire internet trolls to target her after she made allegations that the royal had “raped and battered” her, according to her bombshell memoir.
In her posthumous book Nobody’s Girl, due to be released on Tuesday, Ms Giuffre claimed Prince Andrew and his team attempted to “cast doubt on my credibility” after she spoke out about alleged abuse at the hands of paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein and his then-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
The latest revelations come after the Metropolitan Police said it is “actively” looking into claims that Andrew passed her date of birth and social security number to his bodyguard in a bid to dig up dirt for a smear campaign.
Andrew, who has always vehemently denied any wrongdoing, reached a financial settlement with Ms Guiffre in 2022. He relinquished use of his Duke of York title on Friday, but pressure is growing on the royal family to back a move to formally strip Andrew of his dukedom through parliamentary legislation.
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The book gives detailed accounts of three separate occasions when Ms Giuffre, who died by suicide aged 41 this year, said she had sex with Andrew. The first occasion took place at Maxwell’s London home in March 2001, when the infamous picture of the pair was taken.
In the memoir, Ms Guiffre reveals difficulties she and her legal team faced in lodging the civil sexual assault case, launched in August 2001, in which she wrote that she “alleged Prince Andrew had raped and battered me when I was a minor, causing me severe and lasting damage”.
She claimed Andrew’s legal team did not respond to a letter signalling intent of a legal suit and that, when action was launched, papers could not be served on him because of him “fleeing to Queen Elizabeth’s Balmoral Castle in Scotland and hiding behind its well-guarded gates”.
However, after a US judge accused Andrew of playing “hide and seek” and Ms Guiffre’s legal team got a “break” when a witness came forward to say she had seen Ms Guiffre and Andrew together at Tramp nightclub in London, the case progressed, she wrote.
But in her memoir, Ms Guiffre claimed Andrew’s legal team tried to hire internet trolls to target her online.
“After casting doubt on my credibility for so long— Prince Andrew’s team had even gone so far as to try to hire internet trolls to hassle me— the Duke of York owed me a meaningful apology as well,” she wrote.
Andrew’s legal team did reach an out-of-court settlement, reported to be millions, saying he had “never intended to malign Ms Giuffre’s character” and he recognised she had “suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks”.
In her memoir, Ms Guiffre claimed she first had sex with Andrew after the pair were introduced by Epstein and Maxwell in London. The infamous picture was taken by Epstein at her own request as a memento for her mother, she wrote.
In the book, Ms Guiffre accused Andrew of being “entitled – as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright”. She said she was paid $15,000 for “serving the man the tabloids called ‘Randy Andy’”.
Ms Giuffre also recounted how the death of Diana, Princess of Wales left her scared, amid unproven claims the royal family was involved.
She said she “hadn’t wanted to have sex with the prince, but felt I had to,” saying she believed there was no way to free herself from Epstein and Maxwell’s grip and that she knew she “needed to keep Epstein and Maxwell happy.”
She claimed she and Andrew had sex again a month later at Epstein’s house in New York, and then at Epstein’s private Caribbean island, where she said they were involved in an orgy with around eight other girls.
Reflecting on her legal battles with Epstein and Andrew, she wrote in her memoir: “I don’t regret it, but the constant telling and retelling has been extremely painful and exhausting. With this book, I seek to free myself from my past.”
The titles and honours Andrew will no longer use include his wedding day titles – Duke of York, the Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh, his knighthood as a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) and his Garter role as a Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.
Formally stripping him of the title would require an Act of Parliament but Charles is believed to view the largely symbolic move as a waste of parliamentary time and the Government has said it will be guided by the royal family’s views.
