Don’t recollect having sex, sweating, getting photographed… Yes, I remember going to Pizza Express that night: Prince Andrew

The British royal family hadn’t even fully recovered from the raw and damaging I’m-not-ok-confession by the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, when an explosive claim by a Jeffrey Epstein accuser has landed another esteemed member of the royal family in unsavoury spotlight. Prince Andrew, who is one shy of 60 and eighth in line to the throne of England, found himself, in a rare public interview by a royal family member, speaking outside of the acts of charity and humanitarian work, rebutting accusations by a girl, then 17, being forced into sex. 

Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre, whose claim she was forced into sleeping with Prince Andrew, has got the royal family’s reputation in a knot. In what many believe to be an ill-advised decision, his surprising hour-long interview to BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis, ends up revealing gaping holes in the story that purportedly unfolds on the night of March 10, 2001, than actually plugging the Epstein genie back in the bottle.  

‘I don’t recollect meeting her ever’

Prince Andrew employs a classic manoeuvre of forgetfulness and regret to dodge accusations during the interview but ends up fighting nothing and lighting up more of the red flags in a trail that ultimately leads back to him. On his alleged sexual encounters with Giuffre, he tells BBC, “No, I’ve no recollection of ever meeting her… In fact I’m convinced that I was never in Tramps with her. There are a number of things that are wrong with that story, one of which is that I don’t know where the bar is in Tramps.”

Epstein, a disgraced US billionaire was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and abusing dozens of underage girls with his associate and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. He is believed to have taken his own life in a shocking turn of events that threatened to expose some of the most powerful people who allegedly benefitted from his nefarious trafficking of girls. Virginia Giuffre, who is one of his accusers, claims she dined and danced with Prince Andrew in 2001 at the Tramp Nightclub in London. She also claims to have had sex with the prince in the Belgravia lodging of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is admittedly friends with him. 

‘I don’t recollect having sweated’

Confronted with the prince’s denial, BBC interviewer Maitlis points out that Giuffre is “very specific about that night… she described dancing with you. And, you profusely sweating and that she went on to have bath possibly.” The prince denies sweating that day or back then. “There’s a slight problem with the sweating because I have a peculiar medical condition which is that I don’t sweat or I didn’t sweat at the time and that was… was it… yes, I didn’t sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenalin in the Falkland’s War,” he tells Maitlis.  

“I don’t believe that photograph was taken…”

There is a photograph which suggests the prince holding his accuser then by her waist at Maxwell’s residence. “I’m afraid to say that I don’t believe that photograph was taken in the way that has been suggested,” he says in his defence. 

When cornered into admitting that he did go and stay with Epstein at his New York mansion even after he was convicted of sex offence and released, the prince said he went there to tell him in person that he was breaking off his friendship and that he didn’t wish to do this over the phone. “I felt that doing it over the telephone was the chicken’s way of doing it,” he said. So the prince basically went to tell Epstein he was breaking up with him over the allegations and continued to stay at that New York mansion for several days! 

He terms it as a “considerable stretch to say that he was a very, very close friend”. But admits Epstein had “the most extraordinary ability to bring extraordinary people together”, people he terms as the “US eminents”.  

“I remember going to Pizza Express that night”

The British royal argues on the evening of 10th March, he was home with the children and he had taken Beatrice, his daughter, to a Pizza Express in Woking between 4:00 and 5:00 pm. When asked why would he remember going for a pizza so vividly, he said, “going to Pizza Express in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do, a very unusual thing for me to do.” 

His accuser, Virginia Giuffre, in a detailed submission to 60 Minutes Australia reveals how she was forced into sex by Epstein and his associate in a threesome in the first encounter. She was hired as a travelling masseuse. She terms his Manhattan mansion as a Horror House that needs to be burned to the ground.   

Not everyone is convinced with Prince Andrew’s decision to share his side of story in an unprecedented interview by a royal family member. As Richard Kay, expert and long time writer on royal families says in the Daily Mail, “This is the gambling equivalent of betting the house on the last spin of the roulette wheel. And Andrew has put it all on black.’’