Prince Andrew fails interview royally
HE WANTED to use it as an opportunity to clear the air, to tell his side of the story – but all Prince Andrew managed to do with his highly anticipated tell-all interview was make an impossible situation even worse.
Parts of it were almost too excruciating to watch. For 45 minutes viewers saw Queen Elizabeth’s favourite son squirming in his chair as hard-nosed BBC journalist Emily Maitlis bombarded him with embarrassing questions about his ill-advised friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (66). It’s a relationship that’s cost him his reputation and his job as a UK trade envoy, and has caused endless headaches for the royal family.
They got to hear about a weird condition Andrew (59), eighth in line to the British throne, claims to suffer from that makes it impossible for him to sweat. He also babbled on at length about a trip he made to a pizza restaurant in 2001.
These are two bits of evidence the prince believes conclusively prove that he never had sex with a 17-year-old girl Epstein allegedly trafficked to London specifically to sleep with Andrew. But commentators aren’t convinced. “He seemed unable to believe himself what was coming out of his mouth,” wrote Suzanne Moore of The Guardian.
Critics have also asked why he found it acceptable to go on TV but is still reluctant to come clean with the FBI, which is investigating Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring.
As for Epstein, who was found hanged in his jail cell in August while awaiting trial on new sex-trafficking charges involving several young girls, Andrew doesn’t regret befriending him. Nor does he regret inviting him to a shooting weekend at the queen’s country retreat, Sandringham, in Norfolk. Or to daughter Princess Beatrice’s 18th birthday at Windsor Castle.
What he does regret is that Epstein “quite obviously conducted himself in a manner unbecoming”.
Unbecoming? A strange word to use for a convicted sex offender, Maitlis pointed out. And, like much in Andrew’s interview, it just doesn’t make sense.
FRIENDSHIP WITH A SEXUAL PREDATOR
Andrew explained he met Epstein in 1999 through the billionaire’s then-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell (now 57).
“It’d be a stretch to say we were close friends,” Andrew says in the interview, which was reportedly done with the queen’s approval. “I suppose I saw him once or twice a year, perhaps maybe a maximum of three times a year.”
Epstein’s housekeeper has testified that Andrew visited the disgraced financier’s mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, around four times a year and had a daily massage. Maitlis puts Andrew on the spot, asking if there was any chance those massages were administered by someone who was being sexually exploited or trafficked by Epstein.
“No, I don’t think . . . I mean I . . . no,” he stammers. “Definitely not, definitely not and I definitely didn’t visit his Palm Beach house three or four times a year. Absolutely not.” But he doesn’t deny getting massages.
THAT INCRIMINATING PICTURE
The photo of the prince with his arm around the bare midriff of 17-year-old Virginia Roberts has dogged Andrew for years. Virginia (now 35) claims she was introduced to the prince on 10 March 2001 and that they had sex after spending the night partying at Tramp nightclub in the British capital.
She also maintains she was forced to have sex with Andrew on two other occasions – once at Epstein’s New York home, and another time at an orgy involving seven or eight girls on the billionaire’s private island, one of the US Virgin Islands.
But Andrew denies ever having sex with her. In fact, he claims to have no recollection of meeting Virginia and has even hired experts to investigate if the picture was faked.
S IS HE LYING? Experts believe it’s unlikely the picture was doctored because back in 2001 such photo-manipulation techniques were still in their infancy.
NOT THE HUGGY TYPE
In the interview he says it’s not really fair that he’s known as “the party prince”.
“I don’t know why I’ve collected that title because I don’t . . . I never have really partied. I’ve never really felt the need to go and party.”
He also says the intimate shot of him and Virginia is highly unusual.
“I’m not one to, as it were, hug and public displays of affection aren’t something that I do,” he says.
Virginia has claimed that as Andrew danced with her at the nightclub, he was sweating profusely. But the prince says this too is a lie. “I didn’t sweat at the time because I’d suffered what I’d describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falkland’s War when I was shot at and I simply . . . It was almost impossible for me to sweat.” S IS HE LYING? British media took great delight in gathering evidence of the prince partying on numerous occasions and getting touchy-feely with an assortment of beautiful women – and in some instances, looking decidedly sweaty.
MYSTIC PIZZA
Can you remember what you were doing at 5pm on 10 March 2001? Well, Andrew can: he was at Pizza Express in Woking, Surrey, with Beatrice attending a party.
“Pizza Express in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do, a very unusual thing for me to do,” he says. “As soon as somebody reminded me of it, I went, ‘Oh yes, I remember that’.”
S IS HE LYING? Many find it odd that while his memory seems so faulty about really important things, he can remember this pizza party so vividly.
WALK IN THE PARK
Andrew also has difficulty explaining a photo of him and Epstein walking in New York’s Central Park in December 2010, a few months after his friend was released from prison after serving 13 months for soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution (YOU, 5 September).
The photo, together with the revelation that in 2010 Epstein had given Andrew’s ex-wife, Sarah, Duchess of York, £15 000 (then about R157 500) to help pay off her debts, caused such an outcry the prince was forced to resign his post as UK special trade envoy.
Andrew claims that when the photo was taken, he was telling Epstein it was no longer appropriate for them to have any contact. He was in New York at the time for business and decided to confront his friend face to face.
“I felt that doing it over the telephone was the chicken’s way of doing it. I had to go and see him,” Andrew says.
S IS HE LYING? Turns out before the walk in the park Andrew had been staying at Epstein’s home for several days. And had in fact been a guest of honour at a dinner party held to celebrate his pal’s release from jail. Critics have asked: why do all this, then wait for the second-last day to end the friendship?
DID HE KNOW WHAT EPSTEIN WAS UP TO?
Andrew swears he had no idea what was happening. “I never . . . I mean if there were [underage girls with Epstein], then I wasn’t a party to any of that. I never saw them.”
S IS HE LYING? Another photo published from his 2010 visit shows Andrew watching while Epstein leaves his home with a young woman. Literary agent John Brockman later recalled it was during this visit that he saw Andrew getting a foot massage from a young Russian woman.
Virginia maintains there’s no way Andrew could’ve been in the dark about what was happening. “You couldn’t spend time around Epstein and not know what was going on,” she says.
‘I’ve never really felt the need to go and party’