In her book "Nobody's Girl," Virginia Giuffre revealed that Prince Andrew's team tried to hire "internet trolls" to harass her while he was hiding in Balmoral Castle. The memoir details the confidential settlement of the sexual assault lawsuit and sheds light on the hidden mechanisms of influence of the royal family, writes UNN with reference to TheGuardian.
Details
According to her posthumous memoir, Prince Andrew's team tried to hire "internet trolls to harass" her while he was hiding behind the "well-guarded gates" of Balmoral Castle to avoid being served with court documents.
She described the confidential 2022 settlement of her civil sexual assault lawsuit, which was rumored to be $12 million. According to Giuffre, her team agreed that it "had to be more than just money."
"After so long of doubting the veracity of my words... Prince Andrew's team even went so far as to try to hire internet trolls to harass me," she wrote.
"Of course, we would never get a confession. That's what settlement agreements are supposed to avoid. But we aimed for the next best thing: a general acknowledgment of what I went through," the book says.
Addition
Virginia Giuffre died by suicide in April at the age of 41. Her memoir, "Nobody's Girl," published on Tuesday, comes amid talks of officially stripping Prince Andrew of his titles. Before publication, the prince announced that he would no longer use the titles of Duke of York and Knight of the Order of the Garter, which remain formally but are inactive.
Meanwhile, on Monday, as King Charles visited Manchester to show support for the Jewish community and those affected by the terrorist attack at the Heaton Park synagogue on October 2, pressure grew on the royal family to support the official stripping of Andrew's dukedom through parliamentary legislation.
Downing Street did not comment on the matter, and the Prime Minister's official spokesman noted that decisions on legislation "are a matter for the palace, primarily," and the government "supports the King's choice" regarding the prince's titles.
He added: "The Prime Minister has deep sympathy for the victims and those who have suffered and continue to suffer."
The Metropolitan Police are currently "actively" investigating claims that Prince Andrew allegedly gave his security officer Virginia Giuffre's date of birth and social security number in an attempt to gather information for a smear campaign, the Mail On Sunday reports.
Excerpts from the book
In her book, Giuffre reiterates previously published accusations in an exclusive Guardian excerpt that she was forced into sexual relations with the prince three times, including when she was 17, and during an orgy organized by sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Andrew vehemently denies these allegations.
Giuffre claims that her legal arguments against Prince Andrew were bolstered by his own words during a 2019 Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis, when he stated that he did not remember meeting Giuffre, did not apologize for his friendship with Epstein, and expressed no sympathy for Epstein's victims. As a result, he was forced to temporarily withdraw from public life.
Giuffre wrote: "As devastating as that interview was for Prince Andrew, for my legal team it was like an injection of jet fuel. Its content would not only help us build an ironclad case against the prince, but it would also pave the way for a potential subpoena of his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and their daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie."
She continues: "Did he really invite Beatrice for pizza on March 10, 2001, as he claimed? If we had questioned the princesses, members of his family might have found holes in his alibi. Would his medical records really show that he had a temporary case of anhidrosis (lack of sweating), which is not usually a reaction to adrenaline? We weren't ready to go to court yet, but that interview gave us much more to work with than before."
As she pursued her lawsuit, the prince, she said, tried to hide in Balmoral. "Initially, the prince made it difficult for my lawyers to serve him with papers by fleeing to Queen Elizabeth's Balmoral Castle in Scotland and hiding behind its well-guarded gates."
In 2022, a settlement was reached during "two days of mediation negotiations." Giuffre read it "through tears." In the document, Andrew acknowledged that she had suffered "both as a recognized victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks." He also praised her and other victims for "standing up for themselves and others" and stated that he "never intended to denigrate her."
She noted: "I agreed to a one-year gag order, which seemed important to the prince because it ensured that his mother's platinum jubilee would not be further tarnished than it already had been."
Giuffre said she received "more" from Andrew than money, because she had "the recognition that so many other women were victims, and a commitment never to deny it again."
She added that she hoped to use "the crown's money for something good" and had already begun developing her Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (Soar) foundation to combat human trafficking.
She also described how conspiracy theories surrounding Princess Diana's death affected her when she was forced to have sex with Andrew in London, because she was "surrounded by people who had far more influence than I ever would."
"I didn't want to have sex with the prince, I said, but I felt I had to," she noted, adding that she saw no way to free herself from Epstein and Maxwell's control.
In her final chapter, Giuffre noted: "I have no regrets, but the constant telling and retelling has been incredibly painful and exhausting. With this book, I seek to free myself from my past. From now on, anyone who wants to know what happened can sit down with 'Nobody's Girl' and start reading."
Giuffre wrote in an email to her co-author Amy Wallace after a car accident shortly before her death that she "sincerely wishes this work to be published, regardless of my circumstances at the time," and that it would still be published in the event of her death.
"The content of this book is extremely important because it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals across borders," she noted.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed that they are "actively" investigating claims that Andrew passed Giuffre's personal information to his security officer. According to the Mail On Sunday, the prince allegedly emailed the late Queen's then-deputy press secretary, Ed Perkins, asking his security officer to investigate Giuffre and hinted at her having a criminal record. The alleged attempt, which the police officer reportedly did not act on, occurred in 2011, hours before the first publication of a photograph of Andrew with Giuffre. The newspaper noted that it had obtained the email from a disclosure held by the US Congress.
Earlier, UNN wrote that Prince William, the eldest son of King Charles III of the United Kingdom and his first wife Princess Diana (died in 1997 – ed.), grandson of Elizabeth II (died in 2022 – ed.), plans to ban his uncle Prince Andrew from participating in his coronation and the life of the British royal family in general.