UK media: Prince Andrew’s sex claims rebuttal a PR disaster
LONDON — British media on Sunday slammed Prince Andrew’s effort to rebut claims that he had sex with a teenager who says she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, branding his televised interview a complete public relations disaster.
In a rare interview with BBC Newsnight that was broadcast late Saturday, Andrew categorically denied having sex with the woman, Virginia Roberts Giuffre. But Britain’s newspapers and social media commentators criticized him for defending his friendship with Epstein and for failing to show empathy for the convicted sex-offender’s victims.
“I expected a train wreck,’’ said Charlie Proctor, editor of the Royal Central website, which covers the British monarchy. “That was a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion-level bad.”
Giuffre has said Epstein forced her to have sex with Andrew in 2001, when she was 17. She says Epstein flew her around the world on private planes to have sex with powerful men, and that she had sexual encounters with Andrew in London, New York and in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The BBC’s Emily Maitlis grilled Andrew on the details of an alleged encounter in March of that year, when Giuffre says she dined with the prince in London, danced with him at the Tramp nightclub, then had sex with him at a house in the tony London neighborhood of Belgravia.
“I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened,” Andrew said.
The 59-year-old prince said he had “no recollection” of ever meeting Giuffre, adding that there are “a number of things that are wrong” with her account. He also suggested that a picture showing him with his arm around the teenage Giuffre may have been faked.
There was no immediate comment from Giuffre’s representative about the prince’s interview.
The New York medical examiner ruled Epstein’s death a suicide last summer. He had been in prison awaiting trial on federal sextrafficking charges, which he had denied.