Prince of excuses
Prince’s bombshell interview reveals... Royal’s odd answer to teen’s sex story Claims in Pizza Express not nightclub Not honourable’ to drop his paedo pal
PRINCE Andrew last night denied having sex with a 17-year-old girl at the centre of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal – saying he is in the clear because he can’t sweat.
The Duke of York, 59, said experiences from his service in the Falklands War left him medically unable to perspire.
His accuser Virginia Giuffre claimed he was SWEATING as he danced in a club.
During the hour-long TV interview the Queen’s second son shockingly said he had no regrets over being pals with billionaire convicted paedophile Epstein because it had “beneficial outcomes”.
The prince went on to claim he could not have met teenage Virginia at central London A-list Tramp nightclub in Mayfair, as she claimed, because he was 31 miles away at a suburban branch of Pizza Express in Woking, Surrey, with his daughter Princess Beatrice, then 13.
Prince Andrew maintained that despite being on Epstein’s private jet – dubbed the Lolita Express – on his private island, at his New York mansion and in Palm Beach, he never saw Epstein doing anything wrong.
And he insisted the photo of them together inside the London Belgravia home of the disgraced financier’s girlfriend Ghislane Maxwell was a fake because he has no recollection of it being taken. He added he had never been upstairs in her house.
Millions watched as the prince was quizzed by Newsnight host Emily Maitlis in an unprecedented TV grilling.
Andrew admitted he behaved in a manner “unbecoming” of a member of the Royal Family by staying with Epstein after the American had been convicted.
Outrage
Beeb bosses made last-minute schedule change to air the programme: Prince Andrew & The Epstein Scandal after six months of talks with senior royals.
In comments that will outrage Epstein’s victims, the prince also said despite his former pal’s crimes and everything that has happened he still does not regret his friendship with the prolific sex abuser as it helped him professionally.
And he appeared to concentrate on his own torment, while showing little concern for the misery his erstwhile pal had caused to young girls.
Mum-of-three Virginia has accused Prince Andrew of having sex with her three times, including for the first time when she was 17 in 2001 after she was flown to London on Epstein’s private jet before enjoying dinner and a visit to Tramp nightclub with the royal.
Denying claims of wrongdoing, he said: “There’s a slight problem with the sweating because I have a peculiar medical condition which is that I don’t sweat or I didn’t sweat at the time.
“I didn’t sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falkland’s
War when I was shot at and I simply... i t was almost impossible for me to sweat.
“And it’s only because I have done a number of things in the recent past that I am starting to be able to do that again. So I’m afraid to say
that there’s a medical condition that says that I didn’t do it.”
The dad-of-two added: “On that day, which we now understand is the 10th of March, I was at home.
“I was with the children and I’d taken Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking for a party at I suppose sort of 4pm or 5pm in the afternoon.
“And then because the duchess was away we have a simple rule in the family that when one is away the other one is there. I was on terminal leave at the time from the Royal Navy so therefore I was at home.”
Asked by BBC presenter Emily how he could remember exactly where he was, he replied:
“Because going to Pizza Express in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do, a very unusual thing for me to do.
“I’ve never been. I’ve only been to Woking a couple of times and I remember it weirdly distinctly.”
He also insisted he could not even remember having ever met Virginia Roberts, as she was then called.
Andrew said of the now infamous photo of them, which appeared to show him with his arm round her midriff: “I have absolutely no memory of that photograph ever being taken.
“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.
“That’s me but whether her that’s my hand or whether her that’s the position I... but ut I don’t... I have simply y no recollection of the photograph ever being taken.”
Asked if he regrets the Epstein friendship he e said: “Still not. The reason on being is that the people that I met and the opportunities ities that I was given to learn either by him or because of him were actually very useful.” The interview, filmed inside Buckingham Palace’s south drawing room on Thursday, was finally given the go-ah go-ahead earlier this week after the Queen gave her app approval following six m months of negotiations between b the BBC and Prince Andrew’s private secretary.
Asked if the allegations a have been damaging d to the Queen, Andrew A said: “I don’t be beli e v e i t ’ s been damag damaging to the Queen at all. “It has to me and it’s been a constant drip in the background that people want to know.” Prince Andrew, who had been friends with Epstein since they were introduced by his university pal Ghislaine Maxwell in 1999, added: “The problem was the fact that once he’d been convicted I stayed with him.
“But at the time I felt it was the honourable and right thing to do.”
It is claimed that British socialite Maxwell, daughter of disgraced media tycoon Robert, acted as a madam to the American, which she denies, while in a relationship with him.
Asked when he last saw her, Andrew said: “It was earlier this year.” US prosecutors have vowed to pursue those who aided Epstein’s abuse.