In yesterday’s first extract of historian Andrew Lownie’s devastating new biography of Prince Andrew – based on four years of forensic research and hundreds of interviews with insiders – the Daily Mail revealed his hedonistic private life and astonishing sense of entitlement. Today, we chart his sordid relationship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein…

On the morning of Tuesday, February 9, 1999, a small group gathered at an airport for private planes just outside New York, ready to catch a Gulfstream jet to the US Virgin Islands. One of the three waiting passengers was the glamorous British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late media baron Robert Maxwell.

Her personal assistant Emmy Taylor waited with her. The third and final member of the group was Prince Andrew.

Andrew and Ghislaine were good friends – and over the years had been occasional lovers – and through her, the prince had come into the ambit of her boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein had stood by Ghislaine after the death of her father – a man with long-standing connections to British, Russian and Israeli intelligence, who had met a sudden and mysterious death eight years earlier –and the subsequent discoveries of his crimes, in which he had stolen hundreds of millions of pounds from the pension funds of his companies.

According to bank records, from 1999 to 2007 Epstein gave her more than $30million to restore her to the lavish lifestyle to which she had become accustomed.

In return, the well-connected Oxford graduate played a crucial role in Epstein’s complicated but lucrative business and personal life, introducing him to influential contacts. She also organised a stream of young girls for the same men who would then be blackmailed, as well as satisfying his own demanding sex needs.

(It has been suggested the connections go further back and that Robert Maxwell entrusted Epstein with up to $20million to hide from creditors. There were also long-standing connections between Maxwell and Donald Trump – they had both bid for the New York Post and often met socially.)

A product of working-class Coney Island, New York, Epstein owned houses all over the world including the largest townhouse in Manhattan, valued at $77million, an 8,000-acre ranch in New Mexico and a home in Palm Beach, Florida, two miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

It was, however, to his 72-acre private island Little St James – otherwise known as Little St Jeff’s – replete with helipad, lagoon and villa served by a staff of 70, which he had bought the year before for $7.95million, that, after touching down in their Gulfstream at Saint Thomas, the party was now heading by helicopter.

The trip was not and never has been listed on any of Andrew’s official schedules because he was not there on official business. His visit was purely for pleasure. Over the years the extent of that pleasure would become clear.

Andrew would be a regular on the island. An employee told Denise George, attorney general of the US Virgin Islands, of seeing him ‘on a balcony groping girls right out in the open – he remembered walking up to him saying, “Good morning your Highness”’.

The duke claims to have only met Epstein earlier that year, 1999. The truth is he and his ex-wife Sarah had known the financier for almost a decade by then. Epstein’s one-time ‘mentor’ Steven Hoffenberg says their first meeting, through Ghislaine, was in 1991, not 1999.

Andrew’s former private secretary Alastair Watson confirmed the two men had met in ‘the early 1990s’. Whatever the exact date, by 1999 they were business contacts and friends, united by a shared interest in money and sex.

In April that year Epstein threw a dinner for Andrew at his Manhattan house. The following month, according to Miles and Cathy Alexander, a South African couple hired to manage Epstein’s Caribbean property, the duke came to the private island ‘via helicopter with his bodyguard and a woman in her 30s, who said she was a brain surgeon.

‘She was a tall, bleached blonde and had big boobs. They shared a room and spent their time wind-surfing, sailing and other water sports. One day he came back into the house in great mirth, claiming his guest had stepped on a sea urchin and he urinated on her foot as a remedy. “The royal member has done its duty,” he chuckled.’

It was also rumoured that Andrew shared a mistress with former President Bill Clinton, another visitor to the island.

That summer, Andrew invited Epstein and Ghislaine to visit Balmoral in Scotland for an overnight stay at a lodge on the estate.

In January the following year there were invitations to Windsor and a shooting weekend at Sandringham in Norfolk.

The following month the prince, introducing himself to guests as Andrew York, was pictured with Ghislaine and Epstein at a party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago country club in Palm Beach. His visit included a round of golf with Trump.

Interviewed on TV 20 years later, Trump denied knowing Andrew – in spite of extensive photographic records of their public meetings. There was that round of golf in February 2000.

That same year both of them attended model/businesswoman Heidi Klum’s Halloween costume party, at which Trump was quoted as saying of Andrew: ‘He’s not pretentious. He’s a lot of fun to be with.’

Shortly afterwards and clearly good friends, Trump and Andrew were overheard at an event to discuss Trump’s plans for a golfing complex in Scotland, talking entirely about ‘p***y’, with the American producing a list of masseuses for the prince.

With Andrew now enjoying his status as a divorced man, Ghislaine and Epstein invited him to several social events in New York, including a party hosted by designer Ralph Lauren. Andrew continued to spend time with them, often staying at Epstein’s homes in New York or Florida.

Epstein’s personal driver Ivan Novikov remembered: ‘Whenever Andrew was in town I’d be picking up young girls who were essentially prostitutes.

‘One time I drove him and two young girls aged around age 18 to a hotel. Both girls were doing lines of cocaine. Prince Andrew was making out with one of them.’

Epstein’s long-time housekeeper Debra Gale, who worked on the island and in Florida, called the duke a ‘mainstay’ at the Palm Beach house: ‘I once found sex toys on the floor of his room and women’s panties in the bed.’ She said Andrew also kept newly- wrapped women’s pantyhose, lingerie and sandals of several sizes in his closet at Epstein’s home.

‘It was weird seeing all that. It appeared he had all types of fetishes. I just didn’t expect that type of behaviour from a man who seemed to be like Prince Charming when you’d first meet him.’

She remembered Andrew taking a Swedish girl to his bedroom and them spending the entire night and most of the next day together. When pressed, she added: ‘When the girls went I’d give them an envelope that Mr Epstein had left, with anywhere from $1,000 to $25,000 in it.’

Epstein had paid a former lap dancer to hire girls – often homeless, runaways or younger sisters of other strippers – to attend his parties, which were always recorded on camera.

‘Epstein made it clear he wanted to make Andrew happy,’ said Ms Gale. ‘I was told to make sure he was looked after, that he had a drink, that he was OK. I saw Andrew at parties a couple of times a year, if not more. I would flirt with him and he would hit on me and was handsy.

‘He would stand in close proximity, looking at my breasts. He would hold my hands, put his arm around my waist, stroke my cheek. He used royalty, his celebrity, to his advantage.’

Andrew was easy prey for a rattlesnake like Epstein.

By 2001, the duke was drifting aimlessly. Having spent most of his life in institutions, from school to the Royal Navy, he lacked the ability to manage his life. Without the discipline of a timetable or a set of orders, he appeared rudderless.

And easy prey. A royal source let it be known that the duke was ‘not the most intelligent of men’ and was easily led.

‘There is the spectre of drugs hanging over almost everyone he’s now associating with and almost everywhere he goes and it is really not something a man of his position – and a father of two young daughters – should be getting involved in,’ the source said.

The duke had embarked on a heady lifestyle in which he appeared to be rediscovering his youth, hooked by the wealth and reach of new friends and the doors they could open. It was to be a dangerous combination.

A friend said: ‘He’s spiralling out of control. He’s even started dressing like a 25-year-old in jeans and blazer. He’s started having a girl massage him and manicure his toes. He even travels abroad with his own massage mattress. Please!’

This lifestyle could be traced back to his closer relationship with Ghislaine. She introduced him to many of the women with whom he had brief flings, but she also drew him further into Epstein’s net. A friend of Andrew’s, close to his ex-wife, could see exactly what was happening.

‘Ghislaine is manipulating him and he’s too naive to realise it,’ said the friend. ‘She’s his social fixer and he’s going along with it. It’s all very premeditated.’

The friend called Andrew a poor judge of character, easily impressed and characterised him as going from being a couch potato to ‘man about town, with nothing better to do than go from one holiday to the next. Ghislaine absolutely indulges him in whatever he wants to do next’.

The relationship with her, though, was also good business. According to one of her friends, Cynthia Matthews, Andrew and Ghislaine did foreign deals together, including a hugely lucrative tobacco deal in Malawi that he helped broker, and a luxury vehicle deal in Thailand. ‘Andrew loved Thailand and spent a lot of time there.’

In 2000, he resumed his on-off affair with Ghislaine. In May they were spotted holding hands at a restaurant in Manhattan before flying to Miami, with model Naomi Campbell and Parisian art dealer Alexia Wallaert, on the Lolita Express, as Epstein’s plane was known for flying so many young girls.

The following month Ghislaine and Epstein were with Andrew at Royal Ascot and they were also among 800 guests at the black-tie ‘Dance of the Decades’ marking Andrew’s 40th birthday, Princess Anne’s 50th, Princess Margaret’s 70th and the Queen Mother’s 100th.

In December that year, Epstein, Ghislaine, Tom Pritzker, chairman of Hyatt Hotels, a woman called Kelly Spamm and an unnamed ‘female’ landed at RAF Marham in Norfolk for a two-day shooting party at Sandringham.

The arrangement to allow the plane to land at the base was described as ‘unusual’ by civil aviation sources, as Marham is the RAF’s biggest frontline base and home to four Tornado squadrons. The Ministry of Defence insisted, however, that Epstein had been given no special treatment and that civil aircraft were ‘routinely’ allowed to land there.

On Boxing Day, Andrew boarded another plane, having accepted an invitation to stay at the Amanpuri Resort in Phuket, Thailand, the most expensive and exclusive hotel in Asia, where he was pictured on a yacht surrounded by topless women. There were reports of him wandering around go-go bars in the red-light district and attending a party at which most of the guests wore G-strings. Andrew was in a towelling toga.

The following year, when he was appointed the UK’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, he would just arrive without having been asked, according to an official at the New York consulate: ‘He came as an excuse to network.’

He would often commandeer the consulate car to visit his ‘friends’.

‘He preferred receptions to dinners so he could slip away early,’ continued the official. ‘If it had to be a dinner, then he wanted an early one. He always wanted Epstein at events. Andrew revelled in high society and for him it was all about the money.’

The official also said Andrew’s ex-wife would regularly turn up, though uninvited, and a place would have to be found for her at an event: ‘It was clear they operated together and she was all about making connections through her ex-husband’s role. She was using events for him as networking opportunities.’

In March 2001, Epstein paid for a six-week trip for one of the girls who worked for him to go to Paris, Spain, Tangier and London.

Virginia Roberts, later Giuffre, was 17. At 14 she had been taken up by 65-year-old sex trafficker Ron Eppinger with whom she lived for six months – he later pleaded guilty to smuggling for prostitution, interstate travel for prostitution and money laundering.

Her father worked as a maintenance manager at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and Virginia found work there as a spa attendant.

There she met Ghislaine and was offered a job, supposedly as a travelling masseuse for Epstein, but which would turn out to involve providing sexual services for his associates.

As if ordering from a catalogue, Andrew picked her out from several pictures emailed to him by Ghislaine. She arrived in London and, according to Virginia, stayed at Ghislaine’s house in Belgravia, where Ghislaine told her she was ‘going to dance with a prince tonight and she should be smiley and bubbly because he was the Queen’s son’. After a shopping spree at Burberry, they returned to Ghislaine’s home where Virginia showered and dressed.

‘When I went downstairs, Ghislaine and Jeffrey were in the lounge. There was a knock at the door. Ghislaine led Andrew in and we kissed each other on the cheek. Ghislaine served tea from a porcelain pot and biscuits.’

The four of them went to dinner at private nightclub Tramp, after which they returned to Ghislaine’s home. ‘All of us went upstairs and I asked Jeffrey to snap a picture of me with the prince,’ Virginia said. ‘I wanted something to show my mum.’

That picture would remain unknown for a decade but when it emerged and became famous worldwide, though disputed as really genuine, it would prove Andrew’s downfall.

Andrew would maintain he had no knowledge of Virginia Giuffre. In his now notorious BBC Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis he said: ‘I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever.’

Not so, according to Steve Scully, who maintained the internet and phone signal on Little Saint James.

He claimed to see Andrew fooling around with a young blonde woman, whom he identified as Virginia, by the pool: ‘He was grabbing her a** and stuff like that. They were kissing. He was grinding against her and groping her.’ Scully said he would repeat his allegation in court under oath.

As Virginia began the legal process which would ultimately destroy the prince’s career and reputation, she swore an affidavit that she’d had sex with Andrew on Little Saint James and also in London and New York.

‘The third time I had sex with him was in an orgy on Epstein’s private island. I was around 18 at the time. Epstein, Andy, approximately eight other young girls, and I had sex together. The other girls all appeared to be under 18 and didn’t really speak English.

‘We were told to start kissing and touching and to use sex toys on each other. Jeffrey and the prince were laughing… and then they undressed and then I performed a sex act on them – Jeffrey first and then Andrew. It was disgusting.’

In July 2019, Epstein was arrested on charges of sex trafficking. An offer of $100million bail was refused and he was sent to the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Manhattan.

The following month he was found on his knees in his cell with a sheet tied around his neck and the top bunk.

There were numerous oddities. His cellmate had been moved out the previous day, the CCTV was not working and both his guards had fallen asleep at exactly the same time and for the same three hours, meaning six mandatory visual checks had not been made.

He had been taken straight to New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital, violating the protocol that any suicide should be treated as if it were a crime scene, and the body was not photographed as it was found.

His death, though, must have come as a relief to many important figures whose secrets he held, which has led to speculation that he didn’t kill himself – the official verdict – but was murdered.

‘He made his whole living blackmailing people and a lot of powerful men visited that island,’ one leading commentator said.

After being hired by Epstein’s brother to conduct an autopsy when the family was not given a copy of the official report, Dr Michael Baden, a former New York City medical examiner, concurred. He noted that 66-year-old Epstein had two fractures on the sides of his larynx and another above the Adam’s apple.

‘Those three fractures are extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation. There were also haemorrhages in his eyes that were uncommon, though not unheard of, in suicidal hangings.’

A lawyer for many victims also doubted the suicide verdict: ‘Epstein believed he was going to get out of jail because what he did was perfectly legal. So why would he kill himself if he didn’t feel he’d done anything wrong, especially before he’s convicted?’

HIS relationship with Epstein and Virginia was instrumental in Andrew’s fall from grace, far more than criticism of his role as special representative, his financial scandals or abuse of taxpayer money – all of which we will come to.

Epstein played Andrew. The prince was a useful idiot who gave him respectability, access to political leaders and business opportunities. He found him easy to exploit.

According to mentor Steven Hoffenberg, Epstein would boast that Andrew was his ‘Super Bowl trophy’ and he planned to sell Andrew’s secrets to Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad.

‘Andrew had a weakness for the girls and fast life, Epstein provided that fantasy. Andrew would then give intelligence that Epstein would give to Israel. Andrew didn’t understand that he was being used.’

In a documentary, many in Andrew’s circle confirmed to journalist Ian Halperin that Epstein ‘sold Andrew’s most intimate secrets to notorious foreign intelligence agencies, including Israel’s Mossad, to Saudi Arabia and to the Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya, the national intelligence service of Libya under Colonel Gaddafi’.

Other sources allege Epstein had Kremlin connections and may have been an ‘agent of influence’ for Vladimir Putin.

What drew Andrew to Epstein? An opportunity to join the super-rich and a lifestyle to which he had long aspired, a supply of women, a chance to make money and someone who would bankroll his life as well as settle his ex-wife’s debts, which Epstein did.

Both men, ostensible friends, used each other but it was an unequal relationship. One of the prince’s friends likened it to ‘putting a rattlesnake in an aquarium with a mouse’.

And the story continues to run, most notably with the suicide of Virginia Giuffre, aged 41, earlier this year.

Although she was thankful that Ghislaine Maxwell, whom she regarded as ‘more evil than Epstein’, was convicted on five criminal counts, including sex trafficking, Virginia had never felt closure. She said: ‘It’s definitely not over. There are so many more people involved with this.’

Many more scandals may emerge, especially if the FBI files on Epstein are released. One clue to what they might reveal lies in a newspaper report in September 2019 saying that ‘British intelligence chiefs were concerned that Russia may have obtained kompromat, compromising material, on Prince Andrew over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.’

According to the paper, John Mark Dougan, a former deputy in Palm Beach county sheriff’s office, had fled to Russia with copies of files on Andrew and was in touch with Pavel Borodin, a mentor of Vladimir Putin. Asked what might be in the files, Dougan said: ‘Lots of videos but I wasn’t going to sit around and watch them. Also lots of scanned documents. Law enforcement has had it for many years. They had it when Epstein was first arrested in 2006. The FBI had it when they seized my computers in 2016.

‘I know they had these materials because they were the ones that alerted MI6 in 2019 that I had a duplicate and had a compromising video of Andrew.’

Much is at stake with this story. What would be the consequences for the monarchy if the full extent of the Yorks’ involvement with Epstein emerged?

According to one former Buckingham Palace employee: ‘They’d be toast. They’d never be able to bounce back from it. They’ve endured scandals over the years but this would bury them for good.

‘If the unconditional truth is ever released, I think the British public would try to impeach the Royal Family. Because a lot of Andrew’s wrongdoings were done on the British taxpayer’s tab.’

It is ironic that the Yorks, ostensibly the strongest defenders of the monarchy, may through their behaviour between them have done most to hasten its demise.

Jeffrey was Trump’s ‘go-to man to have fun’

Donald Trump tried to distance himself from Epstein by claiming they weren’t close. But this was ‘furthest from the truth’, says one of Palm Beach’s wealthiest residents who knew both men.

The witness recalled several functions at which both men were present, including one in 2002 ‘when they were sitting at the same table and talking to each other most of the time’.

He also described a party on a private yacht, for which several Russian models had been booked: ‘Both Trump and Epstein were there and attractive young girls surrounded them. They both seemed to be in their finest element around the girls.’

The source also claimed the two were involved in several business deals and that Epstein was Trump’s ‘go-to man whenever he wanted to have fun’.

‘Terrific guy,’ Trump told New York Magazine. ‘He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.’

Epstein’s black book had 16 numbers for Trump and the financier told biographer Michael Wolff he was ‘Donald’s closest friend for ten years’.

‘Was he killed in jail? 100%’  

The palace does what it can to contain the dangers presented by the late Queen’s errant second son and is alleged to sometimes put pressure on to keep matters under wraps.

Top US TV journalist Amy Robach expressed her frustration when ABC sat on her interview with Virginia Giuffre in 2015.

‘Virginia told me everything. She had pictures, she had everything. She was in hiding for 12 years and we convinced her to come out and to talk to us. It was unbelievable what we had. Clinton. We had everything,’ she said.

‘I tried for three years to get it on broadcast, to no avail. The Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Andrew and threatened us a million different ways.’

One alleged pressure point was to deny the channel any future interviews with the Prince and Princess of Wales.

As a result of the story being suppressed, it is alleged that Epstein and his associates were able to groom, traffic and abuse young girls for another three years.

Ms Robach said she believed Epstein’s prison death was no suicide.

‘So do I think he was killed? 100 per cent yes, I do… he made his whole living blackmailing people … yup, there were a lot of men in those planes. A lot of men who visited that island, a lot of powerful men who came into that apartment.’

That photo… and the real force behind Newsnight’s takedown

The Newsnight interview that played such a devastating role in Andrew’s downfall was attributed to the efforts of presenter Emily Maitlis and producer Sam McAlister. I can reveal, however, that the key figure – and until now never acknowledged – was a different BBC producer, Laura Burns.

Working for the Northern Ireland office of the Panorama programme, she and an assistant had long been investigating Andrew’s relationship with Epstein.

They had travelled widely in the US checking police reports, interviewing Epstein’s staff, tracing alleged victims of both him and Andrew and persuading Virginia Giuffre and her legal team to be interviewed on camera.

The women were followed by private investigators and had police called on them. They were warned that ‘just because the Palace had never sued the BBC before, we shouldn’t assume that it won’t sue now’.

In August 2019, they approached the Palace seeking an hour-long interview with Andrew to respond to allegations and their investigations.

Two members of their office, including boss Andrew Head, had a meeting at the Palace at which Andrew’s team said they had evidence that the photo of Andrew and Virginia was a fake ‘but they did not offer any evidence of this’. Mr Head told the Palace the investigation would continue and a right of reply letter sent to Andrew.

Four days later Ms Burns learned Andrew was not doing an interview with them but with Newsnight and that her months of research had to be passed to the Newsnight team.

How the interview moved from Panorama to Newsnight is debatable but the suspicion remains that the Palace preferred a straight interview to a right of reply after a hard-hitting investigation.

Ms Burns was required to prepare the Newsnight team. She shared Panorama’s script, research, contacts, legal documents and detailed timelines, fact-checked their questions and wrote some of the most significant questions.

She shared all of that information freely with the Newsnight team, but her credit was removed from the interview broadcast.

There was no mention of her crucial role in the Bafta award submission, in the Press or in any subsequent books or films.

The single mother who had made the interview possible had been written out of the script…

Adapted from Entitled, by Andrew Lownie (William Collins, £22), to be published August 14. © Andrew Lownie 2025. To order a copy for £18.70 (offer valid to 16/08/25; UK P&P free on orders over £25), go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.