In March 2011, Buckingham Palace was upset. Or at least that’s what Jeffrey Epstein said to a publicist in a set of recently revealed emails. Just eight weeks before Prince William and Kate Middleton were set to marry at Westminster Palace, the palace was putting out a PR fire. Andrew was the subject of allegations that made the palace “agro,” Epstein told Peggy Siegal in a 2011 email, according to one of the more than 20,000 documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor—as King Charles III effectively rechristened his brother last month—has officially been ejected from whatever vestiges of royal status he still had. But in hindsight, early 2011 represented the turning point. That February, the New York Post published a photo of the then prince walking with the billionaire and convicted pedophile in Central Park, taken about a few months before, with the headline: “Prince and Perv.” A few weeks later, the Mail on Sunday published a photograph of Andrew, Ghislaine Maxwell, and a young Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
In April 2025, his accuser Giuffre died by suicide, leaving behind a memoir that describes her allegations in further detail. By continuing to deny the allegations vociferously, Andrew avoided the worst of the fallout in 2011. When the story emerged again in 2015, the relationship between the media and the royals was changing, due to both the speed of social and digital media, and a literal changing of the guard, in which the younger royals became the primary objects of interest.
The Daily Mail published its first story mentioning Andrew in the context of Epstein’s potential criminality in 2007, after receiving a tip about an FBI investigation. (He continues to deny allegations of rape.) But privately, he was apparently asking Epstein for help after he heard what the Mail on Sunday was planning to report about him. “I don’t know anything about this! You must say so please,” an account labeled “The Duke” said. “I can’t take any more of this.” (Andrew has not responded to a request for comment.)
This round of stories reportedly prompted Epstein to take an aggressive posture in the courts and against the media, and this week’s emails outline his approach. He pressured journalists and contacted publicists, urging them to attack his accusers. Some emails show him expressing concern about information someone might find when they google him. During this time, Epstein continued to communicate with his high-profile friends.
When Giuffre filed a lawsuit against Maxwell in 2015, the allegations were included, and the palace once again denied. In March of that year, Andrew decided to address the allegations publicly during a trip to Davos. “I must, and want, for the record, to refer to the events that had taken place in the last few weeks,” he told the BBC. “I just wish to reiterate and to reaffirm the statements which have already been made on my behalf by Buckingham Palace. My focus is on my work.”
