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Prince Andrew tried to discredit the Jeffrey Epstein victim who says she had sex with the Duke of York when she was 17. His alibis don't add up.
Prince Andrew tried to discredit the Jeffrey Epstein victim who says she had sex with the Duke of York when she was 17. His alibis don't add up.
Ashley CollmanNov 20, 2019, 03:38 IST
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Britain's Prince Andrew is pictured in July.Ian Forsyth/Getty
In his long-awaited BBC interview over the weekend, Prince Andrew gave several alibis to refute the claim that he had sex with one of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers when she was 17.
But many of his excuses just don't add up, and they're being torn apart by news organizations and social media users.
Prince Andrew said he was unable to sweat, he was with his kids that night, and he didn't like to party. None of those claims stand to scrutiny.
During an interview about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein on Saturday, Prince Andrewmade several excuses to downplay their relationship and refute allegations that he had sex with one of Epstein's underage victims.
But several of those excuses - including the allegation that he and the Duchess of York never left their daughters home alone - are demonstrably false.
Here are some of the excuses Prince Andrew made in the interview, and the evidence that either proves them wrong or raises serious questions about their validity.
The Duke of York downplayed his relationship with Epstein and offered alibis to refute the allegation that he had sex with one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, when she was 17 years old.
Giuffre said Epstein's girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, pressured her to have sex with the duke after partying at London nightclub Tramp in 2001. Prince Andrew said he has "no recollection of ever meeting her."
But a photo exists of that alleged first meeting, showing Prince Andrew with his arm around Giuffre with Maxwell standing in the background.
While not outright calling the photo a fake, Prince Andrew said, "You can't prove whether or not the photograph is faked or not because it is a photograph of a photograph of a photograph."
He also cast doubt on its legitimacy because the clothes he was wearing aren't what he would wear for a night out in London.
"I don't believe it's a picture of me in London because when I would go out ... in London, I wear a suit and a tie," he said.
Prince Andrew provided two notable alibis to deny participating in the sex trafficking of Giuffre. The first is that he couldn't have sweated profusely before the alleged sexual encounter, as Giuffre claimed, because he wasn't able to sweat at the time.
Prince Andrew said his inability to sweat had to do with the trauma he faced fighting in the Falklands War.
"I didn't sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenalin in the Falkland's War when I was shot at and I simply… it was almost impossible for me to sweat," he told the BBC. "And it's only because I have done a number of things in the recent past that I am starting to be able to do that again."
But photos from the time show Prince Andrew sporting an oily face on nights out. Other social media users pointed to reports from that era where Prince Andrew's sweating was noted at social events.
It was actually reported Prince Andrew was running with sweat at Heidi Klums Pimps & Prostitutes party in New York , held in 2000 . pic.twitter.com/DIHfSPENza
The second alibi was that he was at home with his daughters on the night in question. He said he and his ex-wife had a rule that one of them had to be with the kids always, and she was out of town that night.
"We have a simple rule in the family that when one is away, the other one is there," Prince Andrew said. "I was on terminal leave at the time from the Royal Navy so therefore I was at home."
Again, photos show that they had broken this rule at least once before, four months earlier.
The Daily Mail reports that Prince Andrew flew to America at the end of October 2000 and didn't return until November 10. Photos show his ex-wife in India at the same time. Neither of them, therefore, could have been with their kids at the time.
At an earlier point in the interview, Prince Andrew claimed that he never really partied after he got married.
"I never really partied. I was single for quite a long time in the early 80s but then after I got married I was very happy and I've never really felt the need to go and party," Prince Andrew said.
Tabloid photos tell a different story.
After the interview, several outlets and social media users started republishing photos and videos showing Prince Andrew dancing and partying with women in the aughts, after his 1996 divorce.
The Daily Mail published videos showing Prince Andrew partying in the French Riviera in 2007 and 2008. You can watch one of those videos below:
Prince Andrew says he doesn't party or drink or has public displays of affection. Here's a thread that counteracts that argument. pic.twitter.com/n3QXzTjp9G
— Cinnamon Rolls are the THANG🤘🏻 (@Royal_Realness) November 19, 2019
