Prince Andrew told Jeffrey Epstein in a 2011 email that “we are in this together” after a photograph of the British royal with his arm around a teenage Virginia Giuffre was published. The email, reported by the Mail on Sunday and the Sun on Sunday, contradicts Andrew’s earlier claim that he had ceased contact with the convicted child sex offender by December 2010.
In the email sent on 28 February 2011, the day after the photograph of Andrew, Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell became public, the Duke of York wrote to Epstein: “I’m just as concerned for you! Don’t worry about me! It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it. Otherwise keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon!!!!” He signed off with “A, HRH The Duke of York, KG.”
Andrew had told the BBC’s Newsnight programme in 2019 that he ended his friendship with Epstein in December 2010 after they were photographed together in New York. However, the 2011 email suggests otherwise. The correspondence emerged in court documents earlier this year, relating to a Financial Conduct Authority case involving former Barclays chief executive Jes Staley.
Epstein died in August 2019 in a Manhattan federal jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges; his death was ruled a suicide. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of a minor. Buckingham Palace and the Duke of York’s office have been contacted for comment.
