WARNING: This story contains details of sexual abuse and may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
The woman who accused Britain’s Prince Andrew and other influential men of sexually exploiting her as a teenager trafficked by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein has died. She was 41.
Virginia Giuffre died by suicide Friday at her farm in Western Australia, her publicist confirmed.
“Deeply loving, wise and funny, she was a beacon to other survivors and victims,” publicist Dini von Mueffling said in a statement.
“She adored her children and many animals. She was always more concerned with me than with herself. I will miss her beyond words. It was the privilege of a lifetime to represent her.”
The American-born Giuffre, who lived in Australia for years, became an advocate for sex trafficking survivors after emerging as a central figure in Epstein’s prolonged downfall.
Giuffre said Epstein forced her to have sex with Prince Andrew
Epstein, the wealthy, well-connected New York money manager, died by suicide in August 2019 in a New York jail while awaiting trial on U.S. federal sex trafficking charges involving dozens of teenage girls and young women, some as young as 14. The charges came 14 years after police in Palm Beach, Fla., first began investigating allegations that he sexually abused underage girls who were hired to give him massages.
Giuffre came forward publicly after the initial investigation ended in an 18-month Florida jail term for Epstein, who made a secret deal to avoid federal prosecution by pleading guilty instead to relatively minor state-level charges of soliciting prostitution. He was released in 2009.
In subsequent lawsuits, Giuffre said she was a teenage spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago — U.S. President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach club — when she was approached in 2000 by Epstein’s girlfriend and later employee, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Giuffre said Maxwell hired her as a masseuse for Epstein, but the couple effectively made her a sexual servant, pressuring her into gratifying not only Epstein but his friends and associates. Giuffre said she was flown around the world for assignations with men, including Prince Andrew, when she was 17 and 18.
The men denied it and assailed Giuffre’s credibility. She acknowledged changing some key details of her account, including the age at which she first met Epstein. But many parts of her story were supported by documents, witness testimony and photos — including one of her and Andrew, with his arm around her bare midriff, in Maxwell’s London townhouse.
Giuffre said in one of her lawsuits that she had sex with the royal three times: in London during her 2001 trip, at Epstein’s New York mansion when she was 17 and in the Virgin Islands when she was 18.
Royal settled with Giuffre
Andrew categorically rejected Giuffre’s allegations and said he didn’t recall having met her.
His denials blew up in his face during a November 2019 BBC interview. Viewers saw a prince who proffered curious rebuttals — such as disputing Giuffre’s recollection of sweaty dancing by saying he was medically incapable of perspiring — and showed no empathy for the women who said Epstein abused them.
Within days of the interview, Andrew stepped down from his royal duties. He settled with Giuffre in 2022 for an undisclosed sum, agreeing to make a “substantial donation” to her survivors’ organization.
A statement filed in court said that the prince acknowledged Epstein was a sex trafficker and Giuffre “an established victim of abuse.”
She also filed, and in at least some cases settled, lawsuits against Epstein and others connected to him. In one case, she dropped her claims against a prominent U.S. attorney, saying she might have erred in identifying him as one of the men to whom Epstein supplied her.
Epstein’s death put an end to his accusers’ hopes of holding him criminally accountable.
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She said she wasn’t to blame for Epstein’s abuse.
Prosecutors elected not to include Giuffre’s allegations in the Maxwell case, but Giuffre later told the court that the British socialite had “opened the door to hell.”
Giuffre also recalled childhood sexual abuse
Giuffre, born Virginia Roberts, told interviewers that her childhood was shattered when she was sexually abused as a grade-schooler by a man her family knew. She later ran away from home and endured more abuse, she said.
She said she met her now-husband in 2002 while taking massage training in Thailand at Epstein’s behest. She married, moved to Australia and had a family.
Last month, Giuffre’s publicist said she had been hospitalized after a serious accident. She didn’t answer questions about the date, location, nature or other specifics of the accident, or about the accuracy of an Instagram post that appeared to come from Giuffre on Sunday, saying she had been in a car that was hit by a school bus and that her prognosis was dire.
The Associated Press does not identify people who say they were victims of sexual assault unless they have come forward publicly, as Giuffre did.
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