In 2021 Giuffre filed a lawsuit against Prince Andrew for sexual assault. The lawsuit alleged that Giuffre was forced to have sexual encounters with Andrew at age 17. He has denied the allegations.Courtesy of Virginia Giuffre.
It couldn’t have been more than a few days before my dad said he wanted to introduce me to Donald Trump himself. They weren’t friends, exactly. But Dad worked hard, and Trump liked that— I’d seen photos of them posing together, shaking hands. So one day my father took me to Trump’s office. “This is my daughter,” Dad said, and his voice sounded proud. Trump couldn’t have been friendlier, telling me it was fantastic that I was there. “Do you like kids?” he asked. “Do you babysit at all?” He explained that he owned several houses next to the resort that he lent to friends, many of whom had children who needed tending. I said yes, I’d babysat before, omitting the fact that the last time I’d done so, I’d been reprimanded; in an attempt to entertain the kids in my care, I’d ignited a huge cache of fireworks I’d found hidden in the house. Clearly I was right to leave that out, because soon I was making extra money a few nights a week, minding the children of the elite.
But it was my day job that gave me my first real vision of a better future. The spa, like the resort itself, was gilded, with luxe finishes and an immaculate, sparkling decor. It smelled delicious, like sandalwood and lavender. I remember there were giant gold bathtubs, like something a god would soak in. More than that, I marveled at how peaceful everyone seemed to feel within its walls. My duties—making tea, tidying the bathrooms, restocking towels— kept me just outside the inner sanctum of the massage rooms, but still I could see how relaxed clients looked when they emerged. Whenever possible I questioned the massage therapists about what they did and how they’d learned to do it. I seized on the idea that, with the right training, I could eventually make a living by helping others reduce stress. Maybe, I thought, their healing would fuel my own. For the first time in my life, I allowed a flicker of hope to build inside me. After all I had been through, I believed I might finally leave my abusive past behind.
Then one steaming hot day some weeks before my seventeenth birthday, I was walking toward the Mar-a-Lago spa, on my way to work, when a car slowed behind me. I wish I could say that I sensed that something evil was tracking me, but as I headed into the building, I had no inkling of the danger I was in. In the car I didn’t see were two people I’d not yet met: a British socialite named Ghislaine Maxwell and her driver, Juan Alessi, whom she insisted on calling “John.” Alessi would later testify under oath that on this day, when Maxwell spotted me—my long blond hair, my slim build, and what he called my notably “young” appearance— she commanded him from the back seat, “Stop, John, stop!”
