The royal family has been rocked by shocking new claims made by Ghislaine Maxwell. With the convicted sex trafficker now dragging the Duchess of York and the late Princess Diana into the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Tapes of Maxwell’s nine-hour interview with US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche have been released and in them. She has defended Prince Andrew, who has been stripped of many of his royal privileges thanks to his links to late sex offender Epstein. But she has thrown Andrew’s ex-wife Fergie under the bus. Alleging it was the duchess who was responsible for Andrew, 65, getting to know Epstein, and not her as Andrew has claimed.
And she says there may have been plans to set up a newly-divorced Diana on a date with Epstein. The comments by the disgraced British former socialite are expected to open up the royal family to even more scrutiny.
“Every time there’s something new about the Epstein case, the palace has to brace for more shockwaves,” says a royal insider.
“The scandal has shaken the royal family to the core and continues to do terrible damage. This case is not going away.”
While Maxwell’s assertions that Andrew did not have sex with underage teenager Virginia Giuffre back in 2001 might initially seem to be helping his case. They may not be doing him any favours in the long run.
“A lot of people don’t believe much of what Ghislaine has told Todd Blanche,” says the source.
“They think she’s just saying whatever she can to get out of prison.”
https://www.nowtolove.co.nz/celebrity/royals/donald-trump-broke-these-three-important-royal-protocols-when-meeting-the-queen-38474/Maxwell, 63, was sentenced to 20 years in 2022 for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls. The Department of Justice (DOJ) interviewed her because of the intense interest in Epstein and his association with US President Donald Trump.
In the interview, she heaps praise on Donald, 79, and says she never saw him in an “inappropriate setting”. She also denies the existence of a list of men who were associated with Epstein’s sex-trafficking racket. She says she didn’t witness any instances of him blackmailing powerful people.
When the conversation turns to Andrew, she defends the duke against allegations that he sexually assaulted Virginia when she was 17, and questions whether Virginia and the prince even met. She describes a famous photograph of the two of them in her London home as a fake.
(Kiwi photographer Michael Thomas, who took photos of the original print while working for a UK newspaper, has confirmed the image is real and has not been doctored.)
The photo proved to be central to a civil case Virginia took against Andrew for sexual assault and battery. She received a payout thought to be around $24 million from Andrew, despite his insistence that he is not guilty. Virginia died from suicide at her Australian home earlier this year, aged 41, and her posthumous memoir, Nobody’s Girl, is due to be released next month.
“That’s likely to cause more anguish for the royal family,” says the insider.
Meanwhile, Maxwell has painted Andrew’s ex Fergie as the person responsible for getting the royal family entangled with Epstein. In his disastrous 2019 BBC interview, Andrew said he was introduced to the US financier in 1999 by Epstein’s then-girlfriend Maxwell. The daughter of publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell.
But Maxwell says that is a “flat untruth”, and that the two men met via Fergie, 65. Who knew Epstein through a wealthy businesswoman who was a mutual friend. Maxwell says she would never have introduced them.
“It would never have occurred to me to introduce them. I couldn’t imagine them being friends. Two chalk and cheeses would never… I mean, for real, there’s nothing there to connect them.”
Meanwhile, she alleges Fergie “had a thing” for Epstein.
“I thought Sarah was trying to put the moves on Jeffrey.”
It was revealed in 2011 that Epstein had loaned the duchess $30,000 to repay some of her debts. She later described taking the money from the billionaire sex offender as a “gigantic
error in judgement”.
At one point during her interview, Maxwell describes Fergie as a “frenemy”, saying, “I don’t know if she liked me very much… I think my friendship with her ex-husband… it was always friendly when we were together, but I think there was latent hostility.”
She says she was annoyed at being shut out of social occasions where Epstein, Andrew and Fergie spent time together.
Maxwell also touches on Epstein’s interest in Princess Diana. She says on one occasion he travelled to a “big event” in the UK to meet the single princess.
“I don’t know if she was being set up as a date for him, maybe because she was… I don’t want to speak bad of Diana.”
Her claim that Epstein was keen on Diana aligns with allegations made by US journalist Michael Wolff. Who has written four biographies about Donald Trump. He says in the ’90s, Epstein and Donald competed to see which of them could sleep with the Princess of Wales. They thought wooing one of the most famous women in the world would boost their status.
Maxwell, who says Epstein was “proud to flaunt his royal connections”, details how she became involved with the maths teacher turned billionaire after she moved to New York in 1991. She had been ostracised by London society. After her father was investigated and died in a fall from his yacht for stealing millions from his employees’ pension fund. Epstein gave her a job finding and decorating properties for him. Which evolved into running his numerous international estates, including his private Caribbean island and mansions in Palm Beach and New York.
Money, power & denial
Between 1999 and 2007, Epstein gave her around $47 million, on top of her $400,000 annual salary. Maxwell denies in the interview that the money was for recruiting young women for him. And says
the cash was “probably” for a helicopter and cars.
The pair had a romantic relationship for 10 years and Maxwell insists she didn’t know he was abusing underage girls. She remained in his life after they split up in 2001, continuing to manage his properties. Even after he was convicted of child sex charges in 2008.
Epstein’s death & Maxwell’s conviction
In 2019, Epstein died in prison while awaiting trial on more charges. His death was ruled a suicide. Maxwell says she does not believe he took his own life, but does not know who might have killed him.
Two years after Epstein’s death, Maxwell was convicted of five charges, including sex trafficking a minor. She now wants the Supreme Court to overturn her convictions and has sought a pardon from President Trump. A couple of weeks after meeting with the DOJ. She was moved from a Florida prison to a minimum security facility in Texas.
After the tapes were made public, Virginia’s family hit out at the US Justice Department for not challenging Maxwell’s “court-proven lies” during the interview and for providing her with a platform to “rewrite history”.
In a statement they said, “This travesty of justice entirely invalidates the experiences of the many brave survivors who put their safety, security and lives on the line to ensure her conviction, including
our sister.”
