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Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in prison for her role in securing young and underage girls for the late Jeffrey Epstein, has provided stunning new insight into an infamous photo featuring Prince Andrew and a young Virginia Guiffre.
In her first televised interview since being put behind bars, Maxwell said that she had no recollection of the photograph nor of any meeting between Andrew and Guiffre, whose last name at the time was Roberts. In fact, she said the famous photo is “fake,” according to a snippet of the interview obtained by the Daily Mail.
“The infamous snap of the pair, which was reportedly taken in March 2001 at Maxwell’s apartment, was given by Ms Guiffre to The Mail on Sunday in February 2011,” the outlet reported, adding:
Ms Guiffre, previously Roberts, claimed she was forced to have sex with the Prince when she was 17, having been trafficked by convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who in 2019 was found dead in his prison cell.
“I have no memory of them meeting. And I don’t think that picture is real,” says Maxwell in the interview which will be aired on Jeremy Kyle’s TalkTV on Monday.
“It is a fake. I don’t believe it is real for a second, in fact I am sure it is not. There has never been an original, there is no photograph,” she added. “There is no original of that photo, (just) copies of copies and parts of it, according to some experts, look like it has been photoshopped. I don’t remember her in my home.”
She also said it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that, at some point, the prince could have met with Guiffre as she traveled with Epstein.
“It wasn’t something so outrageously out of left field that it couldn’t have happened. But the photo doesn’t appear to be real. And I don’t recall it being taken. I have no memory of Virginia and Prince Andrew meeting,” she insisted.
WATCH:
In February 2022, Andrew agreed to pay the 39-year-old Guiffre a settlement while not admitting to anything and has continued to proclaim his innocence in the months since. But there has been fallout: He’s an outcast within the royal family, “was stripped of his military titles and asked not to use his HRH title,” The Mail noted.
“Andrew felt as if he was in a pressure cooker, as if he was given no option but to settle,” a source told the outlet. “But he never wanted to settle and has always insisted he was innocent. He wants to see what legal routes might be available to him.”
Andrew himself has questioned the legitimacy of the photo, saying he had “no recollection” of meeting Guiffre and that he’s not one to show affection in front of others anyway.
The outlet noted further:
The interview comes as Prince Andrew is to launch a dramatic bid to overturn the multi-million-pound settlement he struck with Ms Guiffre in an attempt to get her to retract her sexual assault allegations and possibly secure an apology.
The Duke of York has taken action after Ms Guiffre dropped her lawsuit against Epstein’s former lawyer Alan Dershowitz last year, who she also accused of sexual assault.
In October, she told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview that characterizations of her in the media “is a fictional version of me. 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,” she said, before going on to say she is frightened of what will happen to her in prison. “Jails are dangerous.
“And, actually, given what I have seen and witnessed in jail – guards selling drugs and being inappropriate in every way, I have seen all those things and therefore feel prisons are not safe spaces. Until you’ve been here, you really don’t understand how appalling it is,” she continued.
“I would tell anybody to do everything possible to avoid coming to jail,” she said.
