“There was never an original and there is no photograph.
I have only ever seen a photocopy of it.
Ghislaine Maxwell, sentenced in June in New York to twenty years in prison for sex trafficking of minors on behalf of the deceased American financier Jeffrey Epstein, brought water to the mill of Prince Andrew.
She claimed in an interview that a photo showing the prince with a 17-year-old girl is "a fake".
The former British socialite gave an interview from her prison in the United States to TalkTV, a British television.
This will be broadcast on Monday evening but extracts were published on Sunday.
Widely circulated photo
In this interview is mentioned the photo, which had been widely circulated in the media, showing Prince Andrew, the brother of King Charles III, and Virginia Giuffre who are held by the waist, all smiles, with Ghislaine Maxwell in the background.
American Virginia Giuffre accuses the prince of sexually assaulting her three times in 2001, when she was 17, in London, New York and the US Virgin Islands.
She claimed to have met him through Epstein.
Andrew, friend of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, sealed an amicable agreement with her in February 2022, paying millions of dollars, which allowed him to avoid a civil lawsuit in New York, which would have been extremely embarrassing for the British royal family.
Cancellation of the financial agreement?
But the prince, who fell into disgrace after these accusations of sexual assault, has always disputed the accusations and even claimed to have never met Virginia Giuffre.
The photo is “a fake”, says Ghislaine Maxwell in the interview excerpt.
"I don't believe for a second that she's real, in fact I'm sure she isn't," she adds.
In an interview with the BBC in 2019, Prince Andrew had already questioned the authenticity of the photo showing him with the young girl.
According to
The Sun on Sunday
and
Mail on Sunday newspapers
, Andrew is exploring legal options to try to cancel the deal with Virginia Giuffre.
Andrew “will seek to overturn the multi-million pound settlement with his sex accuser, after his trial against a high-profile US lawyer failed,” writes the tabloid
The
Sun.
The Duke of York is said to be in contact with his American lawyers.
“He hopes to obtain a retraction, or even an apology, which could allow him to resume his royal duties,” writes the newspaper.
According to an unnamed source quoted in the tabloid, Andrew "never wanted to make a deal and always maintained his innocence".
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