The former Prince told Epstein and his lawyers “I can’t take any more of this” after a newspaper pursued them for comment about sexual abuse at Epstein’s home
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor insisted he had “NOTHING” to do with sex abuse claims against him and Jeffrey Epstein, and begged the financier to “say so”.
He added: “I can’t take any more of this.” The exchange came in an email in March 2011, when the former Prince was under mounting criticism over his friendship with Epstein.
It was in a chain of emails copying in Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s fixer and two lawyers, and was in response to a request for comment from a newspaper about allegations regarding Andrew and a complainant thought to be Virginia Giuffre.
“Hey there!” Andrew wrote. “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.”
Elsewhere in a cache of 20,000 documents and photographs published by the US House Oversight Committee is an email chain from a few days later, showing Peter Mandelson the UK’s former Ambassador to the UK urged Epstein not to agree to an interview with the BBC.
After a request from BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to Jeffrey Epstein’s attorney Jack Goldberger for an interview with Epstein about “stories which are circulating, however inaccurately, about both him and Prince Andrew, the Duke of York”, Goldberger forwarded the chain first to Epstein, who forwarded it to Mandelson.
Mandelson, who was sacked in September over his friendship with Epstein, replied: “No!!” In September, Lord Mandelson said he felt “utterly awful about my association with Epstein 20 years ago and the plight of his victims”.
Andrew has faced sustained scrutiny over allegations made by Virginia Giuffre, who said she was trafficked by Epstein as a teenager and forced to have sex with him, which he vehemently denies. She died earlier this year by suicide.
Following the publication of her posthumous memoir last month, King Charles removed Andrew’s “prince” title and is evicting him from Royal Lodge. Andrew settled a civil lawsuit with Giuffre for a reported £12 million in 2022 without admitting liability.
In a 2019 BBC interview, he said he had “no recollection” of meeting her and said “under the right circumstances” he would testify under oath. “If push came to shove and the legal advice was to do so, then I would be duty-bound to do so,” he said.
He acknowledged he had met Epstein before and after the financier’s first conviction and confirmed visits to Epstein’s island and private plane. He also confirmed Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell visited Windsor Castle and Sandringham.