Ghislaine Maxwell said she feels “so bad” for her “dear friend” Prince Andrew.
Maxwell, 60, made the comment in her first interview since her conviction last year for a CBS-Paramount Plus documentary. The Duke of York, 62, has gone above and beyond to deny his connections to the convicted sex trafficker as he faces scandal himself, and Maxwell reportedly looked “shaken” when told Andrew denies the two were ever close, according to the Guardian.
“I feel so bad for him. I follow what is happening to him,” she told filmmaker Daphne Barak.
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“I accept that this friendship could not survive my conviction. He is paying such a price for the association. I consider him a dear friend. I care about him,” Maxwell said when told of Andrew’s denial of their connection. When asked if she would continue being friends with him after her prison term, she replied, “I don’t have an expectation. People who I have been friends with, and very close friends with … I can’t think about what they will want to do or not do.”
The disgraced British socialite also addressed a now-infamous picture of Andrew with an underage Virginia Giuffre, which became instrumental in the Giuffres’ case against the Duke.
“I have come to discover that image I don’t believe is true. And the original has never been produced because it doesn’t exist. I don’t believe that image is a true image,” she said, despite earlier having appeared to confirm its authenticity.
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Prince Andrew’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell have resulted in a firestorm against England’s royal family.
Giuffre accused the prince of raping her when she says she was a minor and a victim of sex trafficking by Epstein and Maxwell. Although Andrew denied the accusations, they reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount in Giuffre’s lawsuit earlier this year. Andrew’s mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, stripped Andrew of his military titles because of the lawsuit.
Maxwell was found guilty on five of six counts on June 28, which included transporting a minor for the purposes of criminal sexual activity, conspiring to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, and perjury related to statements she made in 2016. Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison, claimed that meeting Epstein was the “biggest regret” of her life.
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy for allegedly abusing girls as young as 14. He pleaded not guilty to the charges before being found dead in his Manhattan prison cell in August 2019. His death at 66 was ruled a suicide by the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office.
