Palace ‘tried to stop TV Epstein victim interview’

THE Royal Family threatened a US TV network ‘in a million different ways’ after it announced it would air an interview with an alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein, it was claimed yesterday.

Amy Robach, an anchor for American network ABC, did not go through with the story about the late billionaire paedophile after pressure from the Palace, according to a leaked video.

In the clip, she complained that a 2015 interview with Epstein’s alleged victim Virginia Roberts was suppressed by her editors.

Network bosses feared that if the story was aired they would not be able to interview the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on any potential future tour of the States.

Epstein, 66, was found dead in a

New York jail in August as he awaited trial on allegations he trafficked girls as young as 14 for sex. He faced up to 45 years in jail.

Now 36, Miss Roberts alleges that Epstein abused her and ordered her to have sex with other men, including Prince Andrew.

She said that she was forced to have sex with the Duke of York three times in court documents, when she was 17. Prince Andrew has consistently denied ‘any form of sexual contact or relationship’ with Miss Roberts. In 2015 the court in Florida threw out Miss Roberts’ allegations against Prince Andrew and struck them from the record as being immaterial.

The video showing Miss Robach airing her frustration – which she believed was not being recorded – was leaked by conservative campaign group Project Veritas.

In it, she said: ‘I’ve had this story for three years. I’ve had this interview with Virginia Roberts. We would not put it on the air. First of all, I was told, “who’s Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story”. Then the Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways. We were so afraid that we wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will.’

Miss Robach said the interview also contained claims against former US President Bill Clinton. In a statement released following the leak, ABC insisted: ‘At the time not all of our reporting met our standards to air, but we have never stopped investigating the story.’

Miss Robach said in a statement yesterday that the leaked video caught a ‘private moment of frustration’. She said: ‘I was upset that an important interview I had conducted with Virginia Roberts didn’t air because we couldn’t obtain sufficient corroborating evidence...’

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said that the video leak was ‘a matter for ABC’.