Might Andrew open his arms to me again? No, I don’t have an expectation. I’ve only control over what I do
HER little black book was once crammed with the names of presidents, powerbrokers, movie stars and royalty. But none was more important than Prince Andrew. Today, in an extraordinary interview from behind prison walls, Ghislaine Maxwell speaks for the first time about her ‘dear friend’, expressing heartfelt sadness at his own catastrophic fall from grace. ‘Yes, I follow what is happening to him,’ Maxwell confirms. ‘He is paying such a price for the association with Jeffrey Epstein. I care about him, and I feel so bad for him.’
It is rare for American prison authorities to authorise interviews – especially when the profile of the inmate is so high.
But I spoke to 60-year-old Maxwell face-to-face inside the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn, New York during the summer, and again just a few weeks ago after she was moved to her current jail, Tallahassee’s Federal Correctional Institute.
This is where she will serve a 20-year sentence for her role in helping Epstein to abuse young women.
I ask her about one of the most notorious photographs in the world – one which has haunted Prince Andrew.
It shows the Prince with his hand around the waist of a then 17-year-old Virginia Roberts – now Giuffre – with Maxwell beaming to one side. The man behind the camera, clicking the shutter, is disgraced financier and paedophile Epstein.
Andrew has insisted that the photo has in some way been doctored. Maxwell, too, believes the picture must be fake – despite experts, commentators and Mrs
Giuffre herself maintaining the picture is real and unaltered. Whether the Duke of York will thank Maxwell for her intervention on the issue is hard to say.
Where her company was once eagerly sought by leading figures in society, Maxwell – a convicted sex offender – is now little short of a pariah. It is something she herself acknowledges, and articulates well, pointing out that any association with her name is, at best, a black mark. At worst, she says, it has turned her into a ‘wicked witch’.
‘There are many people who have been impacted by this story who have been cancelled, some friends of mine who never even met Epstein lost their jobs,’ she acknowledges. ‘People who literally had nothing to do with him whatsoever have been cancelled.
‘So I think for all those people, including some of them who never met him, it’s been a very heavy price that has been paid due to the cancel culture. So, you know, from
that perspective, I think it’s been very difficult for a lot of people.’
No more so than for 62-year-old Prince Andrew, of course, who had once been a regular companion.
When I point out the Prince’s lawyers reject the suggestion that
Maxwell and Andrew were close, she accepts it with equanimity. ‘I accept that this friendship could not survive my conviction,’ she says.
Significantly, in Andrew’s disastrous Panorama interview with Emily Maitlis, he appeared to pin the blame for his troubles on Maxwell. He claimed he had no knowledge that Epstein had been charged with sex offences when he invited the American tycoon to Windsor Castle – with Maxwell – in 2006.
Andrew said: ‘Remember it was his girlfriend that was the key element in this. [Epstein] was the, as it were, plus one.’
Following the interview in November 2019, Andrew was forced to step down from public royal duties.
Is there any chance that Andrew could open his arms once more and ask her to be friends? ‘I don’t have an expectation,’ she says. ‘People who I have been friends with – and very close friends with – whoever they may be, well, I can’t think about what they will want to do or not do. I can only control what I do.’
In February, despite continuing denials, Andrew paid Mrs Giuffre, now 38, a financial settlement reported to be in the region of £12million to settle out of court a civil claim she had brought against him in the US.
Maxwell is similarly sanguine about other friendships that she knows she has lost, among them Bill Clinton, one of the many prominent names linked to Epstein in recent years.
At Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial last year, Epstein’s former pilot testified that he had taken the former US President, alongside Prince Andrew and Donald Trump, to VIP locations all over the world on the financier’s private jet.
‘It was a special friendship, which continued over the years,’ Maxwell says of her association with Clinton. ‘Until...’ she tails off – a sentence there is no need for her to finish.
‘We had lots in common. I feel bad that he is another victim, only because of his association with Jeffrey. I understand that he, like others, can no longer consider me as a friend.’
One of the few who did speak out in her defence was Trump, in whose circles Maxwell regularly mingled. Following her 2020 arrest, the former US President was one of the few to wish her well publicly, something for which he was roundly criticised.
‘He dared, while others didn’t,’ is how she puts it today. ‘I was very touched that he would remember me and that he would wish me well. And I was very touched by his remembrance of me.’
She adds: ‘I think anybody who says anything remotely, either positive and/or generous about me seems to attract a lot of negative interest.
‘And in fact, President Trump is famous for thinking and saying what is on his mind like whenever
Andrew is paying such a price for the association with Epstein
I think there are many women who can identify with my story
he says it. So I was just very touched, as I said. I appreciate it. It gave me a big boost during such a time.’
I point out that it’s extraordinary that everything that has happened to her in recent years is a direct consequence of meeting one man. Does she regret it?
‘I said in open court in my statement that meeting Jeffrey Epstein was the greatest mistake of my life,’ she says. ‘And obviously, if I could go back today and I would avoid meeting him, and I would say
that would be the greatest mistake I’ve ever made, and I would make different choices for where I would work. Obviously.
‘I think there are many women who can identify with my story. Many have either fallen in love with or had relationships with men that in hindsight they look
back on and say “What was I thinking?” I imagine there’s not a woman on the planet who would not think that about one or other of their boyfriends.’
What of the reports claiming that she and Epstein were more than friends? ‘I have read and seen and heard and had reported to me so
many monstrous inaccuracies that I can’t even start to pick apart all of them,’ she replies.
Questioned on when she started to feel uncomfortable about Epstein’s proclivities, Maxwell clams up, saying only that she suspects that she ‘started to feel that way after he got into trouble’ in 2006, when he was indicted by the FBI for dozens of offences involving underage girls.
Under a subsequent plea deal, he served just 13 months in a county jail.
‘There were things to mention here about him that I cannot discuss because of the appeal, but I can’t say anything more than that,’ is all she will say on the matter.
Maxwell continues to maintain her innocence even in the face of her conviction, arguing that she was effectively demonised before she had even stood trial.
‘I think the adage “innocent until proven guilty” should apply,’ she says emphatically.
‘And one of the things that is so shocking, the difference between America and England is quite dramatic.
‘In England, when you have an active case, there is no pretrial publicity that’s allowed, which I think is essential.
‘Here in America, you’re just swamped with appalling press
All this is a fictional version of me. It has nothing to do with who I am
when you are indicted and you have no right to speak.’
As a result, she has been portrayed as the ‘Wicked Witch’ in the Epstein story.
‘All this is a fictional version of me,’ she says. ‘It has been created to fit the storyline. It has nothing to do with who I am.
‘So many people contribute to the fake, created version, like a Disney character, the Wicked Witch if you will.’
Epstein, of course, never faced the charges which have brought down his former associate, following his August 2019 death in the Manhattan jail where he was awaiting sex trafficking charges.
At the time, Maxwell was still a free woman, although that would not last much longer: she was arrested eleven months later.
Today, she admits his death came out of the blue. ‘I was shocked,’ she says.
‘I think anybody would be that somebody [had] died. So yes, I was totally shocked.’
Does Maxwell think suspicious forces may have been at play?
‘I don’t know whether he was or whether he wasn’t,’ she says. ‘I’m just saying that the history of, and the activities of, the Bureau of Prisons, the lack of transparency and the fact they have many unexplained things that happen within.’
She pauses. ‘There is a culture of untruth that frankly needs to be brought to light.
‘So I’m saying he’s one among many. But I wouldn’t know. I just find it suspicious.’
It is gripping testimony, whether we believe her or not. And I, for one, am in no doubt that there’s a great deal more to come.