05 April 2024 , 22:00
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Virginia Roberts Giuffre claims she was trafficked to Prince Andrew at the age of 17. Now a 40-year-old mother of three, she advocates for survivors of sex trafficking
Ahead of the explosive new Netflix drama Scoop, we take a look at alleged Jeffrey Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s life now.
Following a difficult childhood that saw her suffer homelessness and sexual assault, Ms Giuffre, then still a teenager, began working as a locker room attendant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. In 2000, she was approached by the now-convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell.
Spotting the book on massaging that Ms Giuffre was reading, disgraced socialite Maxwell offered her an interview to become a trainee massage therapist for wealthy financier Epstein. When Ms Giuffre arrived at Epstein’s home, she claimed he lay down naked while Maxwell instructed her on how to massage him.
Thus began a years-long ordeal where Ms Giuffre told BBC’s Panorama that she was ’passed around like a platter of fruit’ among Epstein’s powerful friends - which she alleges included Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. He has always denied the claims. According to Ms Giuffre, she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew on three separate occasions in London, Manhattan, and the US Virgin Islands in 2001. Ms Giuffre, who was 17 years old at the time of the alleged incidents, claims she was paid $15,000 (£12,000) to have sex with Prince Andrew at Maxwell’s now notorious London home.
Prince Andrew, the third child of Queen Elizabeth II, has vehemently denied the allegations made against him. In his 2019 Newsnight interview - which has been dramatised in Scoop - the 64-year-old also claimed he’d never met Ms Giuffre, despite the pair having been photographed together at Maxwell’s Belgravia mews house. He suggested the image was fake.
In February 2022, Prince Andrew settled a civil sexual assault case brought against him by Ms Giuffre, with a document submitted to a US court reading: "Virginia Giuffre and Prince Andrew have reached an out-of-court settlement.
"The parties will file a stipulated dismissal upon Ms Giuffre’s receipt of the settlement (the sum of which is not being disclosed). Prince Andrew intends to make a substantial donation to Ms Giuffre’s charity in support of victims’ rights."
The settlement contained no admission of liability, guilt, or wrongdoing on Prince Andrew’s part.
In the years since her experiences with Epstein, Ms Giuffre has built a very different life. She previously told the Miami Herald that Epstein began losing interest in her by 2003 because she was getting too old for him. Ms Giuffre says she managed to convince Epstein to allow her to undertake professional masseuse training in Thailand, on the understanding that she would bring a Thai girl back to the US.
While studying at the massage school, however, Ms Giuffre met and fell in love with Australian martial arts expert Robert, and they married just ten days of meeting in 2002. The Telegraph reports that the couple, who have three children together, live in a luxurious six-bedroom home in Western Australia, complete with a spa and balcony overlooking the ocean.
It’s believed the $1.9 million AUD (£1m) beachside mansion, which is hidden behind 10ft-high security gates could have possibly been funded by previous out-of-court settlements related to Epstein and Maxwell. Ms Giuffre, who largely keeps to herself, is said to put time into recovering from her alleged trauma by taking relaxing walks with her dog Juno, and through yoga and therapy sessions.
In a statement read at Maxwell’s trial in 2022, Ms Giuffre shared how she continued to relieve the alleged abuse in vivid nightmares, and expressed doubts that her terrible memories would ever go away. Addressing Maxwell, she revealed: "Ghislaine, the pain you have caused me is almost indescribable. Because of your choices and the world you brought me into, I don’t sleep. Nightmares wake me at all hours. In those dreams, I relive the awful things you and others did to me and the things you forced me to do."
In December 2021, Ms Giuffre opened up about the effect the high-profile trial had had on her children, telling The Cut: "They have friends that say: ’Oh my god, is this your mum?’ It’s a lot for them to carry. But they’re teenagers. They’re at that prime era in life where I think it’s important to teach them about sex trafficking."
Ms Giuffre also advocates for sex trafficking, and has founded Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (SOAR), a non-profit organisation which ’empowers survivors to reclaim their stories and bring an end to sex trafficking."
In June 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment after being found guilty of sex trafficking as well as a number of other crimes connected with her dealings with Epstein. Convicted paedophile Epstein died in his jail cell in August 2019, in what was ruled a suicide.