Connections Between Former Prince Andrew And Jeffrey Epstein, Explained

According to Former Prince Andrew, Duke of York, he and American financier Jeffrey Epstein met in 1999. In an interview with Emily Maitlis from the BBC in 2019, Andrew stated,

Well I met through his girlfriend back in 1999 who… and I'd known her since she was at university in the UK and it would be, to some extent, a stretch to say that as it were we were close friends. I mean we were friends because of other people and I had a lot of opportunity to go to the United States but I didn't have much time with him.

The girlfriend Mountbatten-WIndsor mentioned was Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell, an Oxford graduate, was a well-known socialite in London who remained close with Epstein for years.

Mountbatten-WIndsor's account of when he first met Epstein contradicts that of is former private secretary, Alastair Watson. Watson said in 2011, "The Duke has known Mr. Epstein since being introduced to him in the early 1990s."

Flight records from 1999 and statements made by Larry Visoski, one of Epstein's pilots, indicate Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was flown to Jeffrey Epstein's private island in February of that year. One year later, Mountbatten-Windsor was flown to Epstein's home in Florida. 

Also in 2000, Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein were present at a birthday party for then Prince Andrew. It was held at Windsor Castle and hosted by Queen Elizabeth II. The former Prince's birthday, February 19, would also be the day of his arrest in 2026.

Reports that Mountbatten-Windsor was at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago, in New York with Maxwell, and at other functions with Epstein throughout the 2010s have been documented, as well. That said, the amount of time Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein spent together during the subsequent decade is not entirely clear. Mountbatten-Windsor went on record in 2019:

I suppose I saw him once or twice a year, perhaps maybe maximum of three times a year and quite often if I was in the United States and doing things and if he wasn't there, he would say "well, why don't you come and use my houses?" so I said "that's very kind, thank you very much indeed".

He continued,

But it would be a considerable stretch to say that he was a very, very close friend. 

In her posthumous memoir, Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, Virginia Roberts Giuffre detailed her interactions with Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and then-Prince Andrew. The memoir was released in 2025, months after Giuffre took her own life.

Excerpts from Giuffre's book detail how Maxwell recruited her from her position at Mar-a-Lago at the age of 16 and subsequently introduced her to Epstein. Giuffre became an employee of Epstein's, one who had to be available at all times to "perform whatever sex acts Epstein wanted." She explained that, with time, "Epstein and Maxwell began lending me out to their friends."

In 2001, Giuffre was introduced to Mountbatten-Windsor. When he found out her age, 17, he quipped, "My daughters are just a little younger than you." During that same visit:

He was friendly enough, but still entitled – as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright. I drew him a hot bath. We disrobed and got in the tub, but didn’t stay there long because the prince was eager to get to the bed. He was particularly attentive to my feet, caressing my toes and licking my arches. That was a first for me, and it tickled. I was nervous he would want me to do the same to him. But I needn’t have worried. He seemed in a rush to have intercourse. Afterward, he said thank you in his clipped British accent. In my memory, the whole thing lasted less than half an hour.

Giuffre and Mountbatten-Windsor had sex on three occasions. She sued then-Prince Andrew for sexual assault in 2021, but it was settled out-of-court. There were no admissions of guilt from Mountbatten-Windsor.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor reportedly invited Jeffrey Epstein to his daughter Beatrice's birthday party in 2006, one of the many times the two men saw each other during the 2000s. The former Prince, for his part, claimed,

I was asking Ghislaine. But even so, at the time I don't think I… certainly I wasn't aware when the invitation was issued what was going on in the United States and I wasn't aware until the media picked up on it because he never said anything about it.

What Mountbatten-Windsor indicated in 2019 was that, at the time, he didn't know a warrant had been issued for Epstein's arrest.

 Epstein was in arrested in July 2006, just days after the party. According to federal records:

Between 2002 and 2005, Epstein sexually exploited and abused dozens of underage girls by enticing them to engage in sex acts with him in exchange for money.  Epstein allegedly worked with several employees and associates to ensure that he had a steady supply of minor victims to abuse, and paid several of those victims themselves to recruit other underage girls to engage in similar sex acts for money.  He committed these offenses in locations including New York, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida. 

Epstein pled guilty to solicitation of prostitution in Florida in 2008.The former Prince Andrew claimed in 2019:

Well I ceased contact with him after I was aware that he was under investigation and that was later in 2006 and I wasn't in touch with him again until 2010. So just it was one of those things that somebody's going through that sort of thing well I'm terribly sorry I can't be… see you.

When Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor talked to the BBC in 2019, he indicated that his presence at Jeffrey Epstein's home in 2010 - right after the convicted sex offender had been released from prison - was because,

I was doing a number of other things in New York at the time and we had an opportunity to go for a walk in the park and that was the conversation coincidentally that was photographed which was when I said to him, I said, "Look, because of what has happened, I don't think it is appropriate that we should remain in contact," and by mutual agreement during that walk in the park we decided that we would part company and I left, I think it was the next day and to this day I never had any contact with him from that day forward.

Emails from 2011 came to light years later, suggesting the relationship between Epstein and Mountbatten-Windsor did not end. 

When Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York on August 10, 2019, he was under indictment for sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy. In November 2019, then-Prince Andrew said about Epstein's apparent suicide:

I have to take what the coroner says and he has ruled that it was suicide so…

Skepticism about how Epstein died have not abated with time, but the aftermath of his death have been far-reaching. The same is true for the death of Virginia Roberts Giuffre and her memoir. 

In 2025, largely in response to Giuffre's assertions about Mountbatten-Windsor, 

the style, titles and honors of Prince Andrew [were removed] and [he] will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

Now a former prince, Mountbatten-Windsor was also evicted from the Royal Lodge, his residence in Windsor.