I gave Andrew naked massage at Palace
Masseuse: I was recommended by duke’s friend Ghislaine – and just waved in
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PRINCE Andrew stripped for a naked massage in his bedroom at Buckingham Palace, it was claimed yesterday.
Professional masseuse Monique Giannelloni says she was booked by his then assistant private secretary, Charlotte Manley, to give an hour-long treatment in his apartment at the Palace in 2000.
She was recommended by Ghislaine Maxwell, the prince’s friend and the girlfriend and alleged ‘fixer’ for his former associate, paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Mrs Giannelloni, 55, says she was waved into the residence ‘unvetted’ and was paid by Andrew’s aide with a £75 cheque from Coutts, the Queen’s official bankers, which she still has a picture of.
Now a mother of two who runs a restaurant in the South of France, Mrs Giannelloni was aged 35 and working at a clinic in
Kensington, west London, and making home visits to wealthy clients, at the time of the royal encounter on June 30, 2000.
One of those clients was Miss Maxwell, who told her after one appointment at her Belgravia home: ‘I am going to introduce you to someone more famous than God.’
She said: ‘I thought she may have meant an actor or something. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be royalty.’
A few weeks later Mrs Giannelloni received a call from Miss Manley inviting her to give Prince Andrew a treatment.
She recalled she was ‘very nervous’ about the invitation to the Palace. ‘As I went along the hallway it was nothing but splendour,’ she said. ‘There were gold-framed paintings of members of the Royal Family over the centuries and some beautiful vases on tables. It was all very grand.’
Mrs Giannelloni says she was shown to Andrew’s rooms by a valet. She said: ‘I got to the room and Andrew was stood there in a robe. After saying “hello” he disappeared to the bathroom and came back in the nude. I averted my eyes and I was quite embarrassed.
‘I was a professional masseuse. I had boundaries. I felt deeply concerned that the massage was conducted in Andrew’s bedroom when there were many rooms available at the Palace. I hadn’t expected Andrew to take his clothes off and that wasn’t discussed.’
She said she gave Andrew a massage naked under a towel on a table before leaving.
But she questioned levels of security at the Palace, claiming she wasn’t searched or asked to sign in during her visit. She told MailOnline: ‘I could have been anyone. Nobody knew me. I wasn’t spoken to by a royal protection officer or asked any questions at all.’
Mrs Giannelloni said she first came into contact with Miss Maxwell when she got a call ‘out of the blue’ from the socialite’s secretary in New York saying her boss was flying into London and wanted a massage when she arrived.
She said Miss Maxwell seemed ‘arrogant’ on their first meeting at her Belgravia home.
When she appeared not to know who her new client was, Miss Maxwell said to her: ‘Don’t you know who I am darling? You should read the tabloids, I am a celebrity.’
When she later looked her up she saw her pictured with Andrew at a wedding, and discovered she was the daughter of the disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell.
Mrs Giannelloni was booked for a second appointment a few days later, and she was shown to an upstairs room at the Belgravia home, where Epstein was present.
She said: ‘It was all rather awkward. He was creepy, seedy and very pretentious. She told me about a yacht party she was hosting and asked me if I’d be prepared to go and give massages.
‘She told me I’d have to keep private what happened on the yacht. I assumed she meant “anything goes”. I politely declined. I didn’t like her attitude or her at all.
‘I was very shocked when it all came out about Epstein’s friendship with Andrew. In my opinion Epstein was not a good choice of friend for Andrew. At the time I had an instinctive feeling of uneasiness about Epstein but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
‘Now I look back and am thankful that I was 35 and not some vulnerable teenager who could have been another of Epstein’s victims.’
A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman declined to comment about the massage claims and sources said they would not discuss anything that had taken place ‘during private time and in a private apartment’.
Last week Andrew was forced by the Queen to step down from public duties following the fallout from his disastrous BBC interview about his friendship with Epstein, particularly his perceived lack of regret for the paedophile’s victims.
Miss Maxwell has been accused by several of the victims of acting as Epstein’s ‘madam’, procuring young girls on the pretext of being trained as his personal masseuses, who were then abused and turned into ‘sex slaves’. She has always denied any wrongdoing.
Scotland Yard said yesterday it had ‘liaised with’ US authorities over allegations of trafficking involving Epstein.
Met commander Alex Murray confirmed it received an allegation in July 2015 ‘made against a US national, Jeffrey Epstein, and a British woman’ of ‘trafficking into central London in March 2001’ but, after initial investigations and interviews, had not proceeded.
‘I hadn’t expected him to take his clothes off’