'I mean I’m calling BS on this. He knows what happened, I know what happened. And there’s only one of us telling the truth.'
Prince Andrew made news last month as he finally addressed his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, 66-year-old multimillionaire businessman and registered sex offender who died in an apparent suicide earlier this year.
Epstein was being held without bail on charges of sex trafficking girls (some as young as 14).
Prince Andrew’s name has been linked to Epstein’s after footage emerged reportedly showing the Royal in Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion in 2010, and after engaging in an interview with BBC Newsnight to clear up their relationship, Prince Andrew has now stepped down from royal duties.
This week, more news has emerged as Prince Andrew’s accuser, Virginia Giuffre, formerly Roberts, spoke out, asking the public to ‘stand beside her’.
Speaking out as part of a Panorama TV interview, the now 35-year-old alleged how she was brought to the UK at the age of 17 to have sex with Prince Andrew, stating: ‘I implore the people in the UK… to not accept this as being ok’.
Here are some takeaways from her Panorama interview...
'I'm calling BS on this'
Virginia Giuffre spoke out about the photo controversy in her interview with Panorama, with Prince Andrew saying of the image of the two of them with his arm around her: '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 continued: 'So it’s very difficult to be able to prove it, but I don’t remember that photograph ever being taken.'
'I mean I’m calling BS on this. He knows what happened, I know what happened. And there’s only one of us telling the truth,' Giuffre responded, telling Panorama that the photograph was real and that she had given the original photo to the FBI in 2011. 'The people on the inside are going to keep coming up with these ridiculous excuses, like his arm was elongated or the photo was doctored.'
'Now they knew how vulnerable I was'
Virginia Giuffre also explained how she met Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, recalling that she was working, aged 17, as a locker room attendant at Florida's Mar-a-Lago resort (owned by Donald Trump). According to Virginia, she was approached by Ghislaine to train as a massage therapist, with the now 35-year-old explaining: 'They seemed like nice people so I trusted them'.
Going on to recall telling the couple that she was a runaway and had been sexually abused, she explained: 'That was the worst thing I could have told them because now they knew how vulnerable I was.'
'It was a wicked time in my life. It was a really scary time in my life'
Prince Andrew has denied having sex with Virginia, but according to her, she was brought to London in 2001 by Jeffrey Epstein, where she was taken to Tramp nightclub with Prince Andrew, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
'In the car Ghislaine tells me that I have to do for Andrew what I do for Jeffrey, and that just made me sick,' Virginia recalled in her interview, going on to allege that she had sex with Prince Andrew at Ghislaine's house that evening.
'There was a bath and it started there and then led into the bedroom,' she explained. 'It didn’t last very long, the whole entire procedure. It was disgusting. He wasn’t mean or anything but he got up and he said "Thanks" and walked out. I sat there in bed, just horrified and ashamed and felt dirty. I had to get up and have a shower.
'The next day Ghislaine tells me I did a really good job. She pats me on the back and said "You made him really happy",' she continued. 'It was a wicked time in my life. It was a really scary time in my life ... these powerful people were my chains.'
'You never forget the face of someone who has heaved over you'
Some have questioned the validity of Virginia Giuffre's story, with Panorama interviewers questioning her about the inconsistencies in her account.
'You are left with a foggy memory sometimes, you really are,' she explained. 'I might be wrong on dates absolutely and I might be wrong on places even, sometimes. But one thing that I can tell you is you never forget the face of someone who has heaved over you.'
