Virginia Giuffre Dismisses Prince Andrew’s Claim That Photograph May Have Been Faked

Virginia Giuffre during an interview on the BBC Panorama program that aired on Dec. 2, 2019. BBC Panorama via AP

Virginia Giuffre dismissed Prince Andrew’s claim that a photograph showing the pair together smiling, with his arm around her, near longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, may have been faked or altered.

“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,” Giuffre told the BBC.

“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 says she was sexually abused by the prince when she was 17. The photograph shows her in a small T-shirt, with midriff bare, smiling inside Maxwell’s home with the prince next to her, holding her close with his left arm. Maxwell stands behind them smiling. The flash of the camera can be seen in a window in the background.

Prince Andrew in Harrogate, United Kingdom, on July 11, 2019. Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Prince Andrew, now 59, told the BBC recently that he had “no recollection” of ever meeting Giuffre.

Pressed on the photograph showing him with Giuffre, the prince said he'd seen the picture but couldn’t explain it.

“I can’t because I don’t… I have no… again I have absolutely no memory of that photograph ever being taken,” he said.

The interviewer noted that some of Andrew’s friends have suggested the picture is fake.

“I think it’s… 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. So it’s very difficult to be able to prove it but I don’t remember that photograph ever being taken,” he said. “That’s me but whether that’s my hand or whether that’s the position I… but I don’t… I have simply no recollection of the photograph ever being taken.”

Images taken from video issued by the BBC of Virginia Giuffre during an interview that was aired on Dec. 2, 2019. BBC Panorama via AP

Giuffre said that Epstein himself took the picture, using a Kodak camera that she had with her at the time.

The prince said that he’s never seen Epstein with a camera. “I can’t… we can’t be certain as to whether or not that’s my hand on her whatever it is, left… left side,” he added. “The photograph is taken upstairs and I don’t think I ever went upstairs in Ghislaine’s house.”

Speaking to the BBC, Giuffre said she was trafficked to London by Epstein in 2001 and told what to do by Maxwell. She said she was taken by them and the prince to Tramp, a night club, and asked to dance by the prince. After they left, Maxwell gave her instructions.

“In the car Ghislaine tells me that I have to do for Andrew what I do for Jeffrey and that just made me sick,” she said. She said she had sex with the prince that night at Maxwell’s house.

Buckingham Palace said that the claims are not true.