Ghislaine Maxwell blames Duchess of York for Prince Andrew’s Epstein link
The convicted child sex trafficker made the comments when being questioned by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche at a Florida courthouse in July.
During the interview, Maxwell denied she was the one who introduced Prince Andrew to Epstein, claiming the pair were like “two chalk and cheeses”.
But she said Andrew’s now ex-wife, the Duchess of York, had been the one to encourage their friendship and had “put the moves" on the convicted pedophile.
In transcripts from the interview, which have now been released by Donald Trump’s administration, Maxwell said: "I thought that Sarah was trying to put the moves on Jeffrey, if I’m being honest, and I thought the whole thing was annoying and I was p----d off.
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"I think Sarah is the one that pushed that. And they met and hung out, I want to say two or three times that had nothing to do with me.
"I wasn’t communicating with Andrew, I wasn’t in touch with him. And I know this because I was annoyed and I felt left out, and I felt disrespected and I was like, this is weird. I couldn’t even imagine Epstein and Andrew together."
The British socialite described the duchess as a "frenemy” and believed she didn’t "like me very much”, but felt she "liked Mr Epstein”.
Maxwell also refuted the claims made by the Duke of York in his infamous car crash Newsnight interview that she was the one who introduced him to Epstein.
“First of all, let’s just state, I did not introduce him to Prince Andrew. I did not introduce him to Prince Andrew or to Sarah Ferguson. That is a flat untruth. I’ll start with that," Maxwell said.
She claimed Andrew met Epstein at a house rented by Lynn Forester de Rothschild.
She added: "She (Lynn) had a house or she rented a house in the Vineyard. I think it was in the Vineyard or Nantucket, I can’t remember now which one it was. It was one of those. It was either in Nantucket or the Vineyard, and invited Epstein to go, and I believe that’s when he met Prince Andrew.”
The prince told Emily Maitlis during his disastrous interview six years ago that he was introduced to Epstein “through his girlfriend back in 1999 who… and I’d known her since she was at university in the UK".
When pressed by Blanche on whether it was Prince Andrew himself who suggested he met Epstein through Maxwell, she said: “I think that’s true.”
Maxwell’s lawyer then interjected, asking: “It’s true that Andrew said that.”
Maxwell also insisted there was "nothing there to connect" Epstein and Andrew as friends, which is why she did not introduce them.
Elsewhere in the interview, Maxwell confirmed she met Trump in 1990 when her father Robert Maxwell was the owner of the New York Daily News.
She said the current US president was "friendly" with her father and "liked him very much".
Asked if she ever saw Mr Trump receive a message, she responded: “Never.”
"I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects."
Maxwell also said she "did not believe" that Epstein died by suicide, amid claims he was murdered in prison to protect a supposed “client list” of politicians, billionaires, and celebrities.
Trump’s administration released Maxwell’s interview transcripts in an attempt to quash these claims, which had gained traction after the Department of Justice issued a memo last month confirming Epstein’s death was a suicide.
They also revealed there was no evidence for any further prosecutions - a move that infuriated large numbers of Trump’s own supporters.
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