The Duchess of York’s charities have cancelled her as patron and her brand is now utterly toxic. As Prince Andrew and his ex-wife hunker down hoping the backlash over the latest revelations about her extensive friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein will go away, the Yorks must be wondering whether things can get any worse.
Well, yes they can. And they are about to.
The revelation by The Mail on Sunday this week of an email she sent to Epstein in 2011 was bad enough.
In it, she called Epstein her ‘supreme friend’, said she wanted to ‘humbly apologise’ to him and that she knew Epstein would ‘feel hellaciously let down’ by her.
The supine apology came, of course, a few weeks after she had publicly denounced him, saying in an interview it had been a ‘gigantic error of judgment’ to have had dealings with him and vowing to ‘have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again’.
Once again, Fergie’s egregious behaviour painted the Yorks in the worst possible light.
And yet the scandal surrounding Andrew and his association with Epstein is about to plumb new depths.
Because in a few weeks the posthumous autobiography of the late Virginia Giuffre, the young woman who claimed she was trafficked by Epstein for sex with Prince Andrew (which the Prince denies) will be published.
As Andrew and Fergie hunker down hoping the backlash over her friendship with Jeffrey Epstein will go away, they must be wondering whether things can get any worse, writes Amanda Platell
In a few weeks the posthumous autobiography of Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she was trafficked by Epstein for sex with Prince Andrew (which the Prince denies) will be published
It means Andrew will be on trial once again, in the unforgiving court of public opinion.
The publishers Alfred A. Knopf reveal Giuffre completed the 400-page manuscript before she took her own life in April this year and have made clear it was her ‘heartfelt wish’ the memoir would still be published in the event of her death.
Without giving the exact date, they have let it be known publication will take place next month. And they claim the book contains ‘intimate, disturbing, and heartbreaking new details about her time with Epstein, Maxwell, and their many well-known friends, including Prince Andrew’.
And so in a few short weeks the memoir will be heaping yet more scandal upon not only the Yorks but by association the entire Royal Family. And this, inevitably will resurrect calls for Andrew and Fergie to be exiled from the royals for ever.
Who knows what salacious details a memoir about a very young woman trafficked by Epstein will contain? How much will the Duke be implicated or disgraced?
Will Prince Andrew attempt another TV interview to try to exonerate himself? He reached an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre in 2022 in which he reportedly paid her around £12 million, but has denied all claims against him including her allegation that he sexually abused her three times. One of those occasions was, she claimed, at the London home of his friend Ghislaine Maxwell, currently serving 20 years in a US prison for her role in recruiting and trafficking minors for sex.
Prince Andrew pictured with his arm around a young Virginia Giuffre as Ghislaine Maxwell smiles in the background
We do not yet know what the book will say. But we can be certain that when it is published, the headlines it generates around the world will be lurid, accusatory, shameful and humiliating.
Whether Giuffre’s accusations are true or not, whatever Andrew’s response, we will all be reminded of the greed, the idiocy and the arrogance of the disgraced Prince and Duchess who climbed into bed with a monster and a paedophile.
Truly Virginia Giuffre will continue to haunt the Yorks from beyond the grave for as long as they live.
