Prince Andrew’s ‘In This Together’ Email to Epstein Under Scrutiny

0:01Prince Andrew is caught lying about Epstein, Prince Harry and Meghan win a humanitarian award and William cries when talking to a grieving mother. I'm Jack Royston, Newsweek's Chief Royal Correspondent, and this is Newsweek's Royal Report.

0:39Virginia Jeffery of rape, of sexually assaulting her when she was a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim. She made this allegation in a New York lawsuit. He denied it, but he settled out of court while denying liability and paid her a significant sum in damages. So the question throughout this whole saga, which has now been going on for the best part of 15 years, has been essentially, is Andrew credible? Is he believable? Is he trustworthy? Or should we trust Virginia Jeffrey. Now, this new email that has come out has been leaked to two British tabloid newspapers, The Sun on Sunday and The Mail on Sunday, shows that Andrew in February 2011 sent Jeffrey Epstein an email saying that, you know, we appear to be in this together and that they should rise above the scandal.

1:28Now, that date, February 2011, is hugely significant for a couple of reasons. The first, Andrew told BBC Newsnight in December 2010, he went to New York, stayed with Jeffrey Epstein, was photographed with him walking through Central Park because he wanted to break off his friendship with Epstein and that he never saw him again or spoke to him again after that point. So straight off the bat, this proves that Andrew did have contact again with Epstein. But more important still, it's the nature of that contact. So if you had just broken off your friendship with somebody and you had felt this was such a significant event that you had to fly all the way from London or Windsor to New York to break it off in person, would you really send this email?

2:17I'm going to read you the text of it. Like I said, it was published in tabloid newspapers in Britain. It says, I'm just as concerned for you. Don't worry about me. It would seem we are in this together and we'll have to rise above it. Otherwise, keep in close touch and we'll play some more soon. So obviously the it, you know, that they're rising above, that he's saying they should rise above is the scandal. and it was more than just the fact that they'd been photographed in Central Park at a point that Jeffrey Epstein had been convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution because the very day before Prince Andrew sent this email there was an explosive article in the Mail on Sunday detailing for the first time some but not all of the allegations against Andrew the allegations that would go on to destroy his career So this first take of it didn't actually include Virginia Duffield's claim that she was trafficked to London to have sex with Andrew, but it included basically everything else.

3:18So, you know, again, a little history of this whole saga. So Epstein was rumbled in the kind of mid 2000s. And by 2008, he pleaded guilty for a very controversial plea agreement to massively scaled down allegations. and the Mail on Sunday story made it very, very clear all the way back in February 2011 that he had been facing much more serious charges that could have got him life in prison. They actually printed that. But he pleaded guilty of soliciting a minor for prostitution. He got a very light sentence and it was after that that Prince Andrew went to stay with him. Now, if anybody was in any doubt at all over whether Andrew knew what was really going on, by eight days before he sent his email to Epstein, the News of the World ran the pictures of him walking through Central Park with his friend, a convicted pedophile at that point.

4:16And this is the headline that they published. Prince Andy and the pedo, royal's dodgy pal, just what is the fourth in line to the throne doing meeting a convicted child sex pervert? So the article laid it on even stronger. Prince Andrew goes for a stall with a disgraced billionaire friend who is a convicted child sex pervert. It's the first time that he and Jeffrey Epstein have been snapped together since the financier was jailed on sex charges involving a girl of 14. And it appears that the prince is happy to stand by his old pal, even though Epstein admitted soliciting teenage girls into prostitution.

4:55Now, it was a week after that article that the Mail on Sunday followed up with an interview with Virginia. Obviously, Virginia's allegations against Andrew would go on to destroy him, destroy his reputation, destroy his royal career. And the article quoted her saying that she'd been sexually abused by a family friend as a child. She'd spent time being homeless from the age of 11. During that time, she had had to perform sex acts in exchange for food. and she then wound up being recruited to work as a massage therapist for Epstein. So you get like the whole background of just how awful and horrific Virginia's early life was, including the fact that she took Xanax to numb the pain.

5:38So like it's all in there. There's no way that you could read the full story that the Mail on Sunday published and not come away with a full understanding of just how horrific this all was. And then she talks about being groomed by Epstein. You know, she was recruited to be a massage therapist. She was invited to perform an initial massage on him, which even from the first one, he turned it to sex and paid her$200 each time. And, you know, it kind of goes through how she was basically a scared and vulnerable child who just wanted to please these seemingly very important people. And then it gets into the allegations against Andrew.

6:17and like I said it includes everything but the allegation that she was forced to have sex with him which didn't come out until it was included in court filings you might think that that's a defamation issue because once you're quoting filings from a court case you can't a news organisation can't be sued for defamation but at this point arguably they could have been so the article says Gillian Maxwell served tea from porcelain pots and served biscuits they joked about you know um and or they talked about andrew's kids his daughters um and then gillen asked andrew how old he thought i was and he guessed 17 and they all laughed and gillen made a joke that i was getting too old for jeffrey she said he'll soon have to trade her in it was widely known that he liked young girls um so this is what the mail on sunday had just published just the day before when Andrew sent that email to Epstein, which obviously he assumed would remain private.

7:14You know, he did not, I'm sure, think that his email to Jeffrey Epstein, to his friend, was ever going to be splashed all over a national newspaper 15 years later. But I want to read the email again. So just in light of everything I've just described, this is what Andrew wrote to Epstein. You've got to think that if he either read those stories, two of them, either read them for himself or at the very least a press officer would have made him aware of the content of those stories in broad terms and he wrote I'm just as concerned for you this is to Epstein don't worry about me it would seem we are in this together and we'll have to rise above it otherwise keep in close touch and we'll play some more soon now it is very difficult for me on a human level to understand how somebody could read or hear about that account of a child having to have sex with older men while sleeping homeless in exchange for food and numbing herself with Xanax.

8:13Like, even if you think the allegations against you are false, I really struggle on a human level with understanding how somebody could read all of that. And then, right, I'm just as concerned for you, the perpetrator, and don't worry about me, it would seem we are in this together. Epstein at this point was a convicted child sex offender. He had been convicted, pleaded guilty, like he'd admitted it in court and been jailed for soliciting a teenage girl into prostitution. And Andrew has said to him, we're in this together and we'll have to rise above it. so it's extraordinary breathtaking stuff and it completely blows apart Andrew's credibility because I also want to read to you in full what he said what Andrew said to Emily Maitlis to try and kind of explain all of this away so Emily Maitlis you know big high profile BBC journalist in Britain working on a show Newsnight interviewed him in 2019 it was widely described as a car crash interview it destroyed Andrew's career it led to him stepping back from public life the following day.

9:25So Emily Maitlis asked Andrew, you know, why did you go and see him in New York? Did you really need to stay the night? What was going on? And Andrew said, I went to see him and I was doing a number of other things in New York at the time. And we had an opportunity to go for a walk in the park. And that was the conversation, coincidentally, that was photographed, which was when I said to him, I said, look, because of what has happened, I don't think it is appropriate that we should remain in contact. And by mutual agreement during that walk in the park, we decided that we would park company and I left.

9:58I think it was the next day. And to this day, I never had any contact with him from that day forward. So he's not even given himself any wriggle room there. He's made it really clear that he is saying he never spoke to Epstein again from that day in December 2010 onwards. And we now know, you know, I've spoken in previous weeks that Sarah Ferguson, his ex-wife, got a loan from Jeffrey Epstein, which Andrew helped broker. And in the January, just a little more than one month on, she was saying, she emailed Epstein to thank him, you know, from her heart and say what a great guy he was for lending her the money.

10:37Then February, Andrew pops up saying we're in this together, you know, having been accused himself. So this is a situation where credibility, trustworthiness and believability are so, so, so important because, you know, substantially this these allegations are a kind of he said, she said format, which is, you know, you have to in order to believe that Andrew's guilty and he says he's not. He denies the allegations. He's never been convicted. He's never been found to have, you know, they've never been found true by any judge in any type of court anywhere. But in order to believe Andrew's guilty, you have to believe that Virginia Jeffrey is telling the truth and that Prince Andrew is lying.

11:20Or, you know, it's very difficult to believe that her allegations could be true, that she was trafficked to London, New York and the US Virgin Islands to have sex with him and feared for her safety if she refused. It's very difficult to see how that could be true without Andrew being a liar. So the very last thing that Andrew wants is to demonstrate to the world that he's been lying. You know, that goes right to the heart of what this dispute between the two of them is about. And here this appears to be in black and white and incontrovertible cast iron proof that he was not telling the truth in the very least parts of his interview with Emily Maitlis.

12:01And the whole purpose of the interview was to dismiss and dispute the allegations, clear the air, save his reputation, tell his side of the story. And it is hugely, hugely toxic and damaging to him that he's been shown basically to have not been telling the truth. So what does this mean in broader terms? Well, look, I've talked so many times, both on this podcast and TV debates and interviews and all sorts, documentaries and so on, about what the royal family should do with Andrew. I've always maintained a fairly hard line that they need to completely exclude him and that the kind of future of the monarchy is at risk if they don't and I would definitely still maintain that but I think Charles needs to he's at a point now where he actually needs to send a really strong message not just to Andrew but to the wider family beyond the kind of core working royals but also actually the working royals too Princess Anne the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh but also the wider family outside of the working royals, that nobody is to have anything to do with Andrew and that if they intend to, they need to fully understand what they're doing, that this is a man who lied about his friendship with a convicted child sex abuser.

13:24And, you know, he lied in 2019, you know, by 2019. Let's say that Andrew's right and that Virginia's allegations against him were wrong. Let's just, for argument's sake, let's just imagine that for a minute. By 2019, Jeffrey Epstein had died in prison. There were stories, accounts coming out all over the place of what had been happening to these girls. Gillian Maxwell, Andrew's friend, was in hiding. Epstein had been arrested. He was facing a full trial on the rest of the allegations. And at that point, Andrew did that interview and he didn't express any sympathy for Epstein's victims or acknowledge the reality that they were victims, even though it was known that they had had horrific experiences at the hands of Epstein.

14:17and so people who want to kind of invite Andrew places who want to kind of talk to him and welcome him when they see him at church need to know who they're talking to they're talking to a man who has not shown on camera you know he's getting he's was made to release a statement after the mateless interview but he on camera he did not show one single drop of sympathy for women who were exposed to years of serial sexual abuse by a man who, you know, realistically is America's most notorious paedophile and sex abuser and sex trafficker. And, you know, it is like my, I'm trying to think of what could explain this.

15:01And the only thing I can really find is narcissism. Like that's the only thing that I can find to explain how a man could not express that, expressed sympathy with women who have been through that. And Andrew is now at a point where through that settlement with Virginia Jeffrey, the out-of-court settlement, after her court case in New York, he acknowledged in a statement publicly that she was an Epstein sex trafficking victim as a teenager, you know, as a 17-year-old. So he still obviously denied the allegations against him, but he did release a statement publicly acknowledging that she was a sex trafficking victim.

15:36She obviously had an incredibly difficult life And very tragically, it ended this year when, according to a family statement, she took her own life. So I think, you know, there is a sense there in which that's the kind of proof of the trauma that she lived through. Like Andrew's still free to deny the allegations against him. That's his rights. But it's the proof that she lived a traumatic life like a family. You know, some of them think it wasn't suicide and they suspect foul play. But, you know, if there's only two options, either it upholds the conspiracy or it's the proof that she lived an incredibly difficult and traumatic life.

16:14So I think Charles is going to and the royal family need to start all singing from the same hymn sheet and need to fully freeze Andrew out. And I just think he should never be seen in public with the royals ever again. and I've talked before on this podcast that you know the future of the monarchy does potentially hang on this because if you grew up with this scandal so you know this whole episode in 2011 was really the fire the starting gun that began the whole thing and if you were you know if you were 20 when that when that all started back in 2011 you've now been living this for the with this for the best part of 15 years, that puts you at 35.

16:58So you've had really deep, long-term, ongoing, core memories of the royal family tied to the story of America's most notorious child abuser. And actually another interesting kind of date range is if you were 14 at the time that all this broke, you've got to think that's kind of old enough to be aware of what's going on in the news, maybe listen to your parents talking about it, maybe they're telling you more than they would have done when you were younger. you'd now be 29 which is actually the average age for a new mum in Britain and that is where the royal family are right now they're getting to a point where increasingly the parental generation, not just young people 18 to 24, but the parental generation who are raising the next generation of British young people increasingly are turning against the monarchy and polling data suggests would be split 50-50 on whether to actually abolish the monarchy if the question was put in those binary terms.

17:56So it's a massive, massive issue and a massive, massive scandal for the royals, and it might not even be over. There could well be more documents to come. We know the House Oversight Committee has been publishing a lot of documents. These didn't actually come from a formal publication from the Oversight Committee. They were leaked. This latest email was leaked to the Mail on Sunday and the Sun on Sunday. So, yeah, there could well be more to come. Apart from anything else, you know, what was Epstein's email to Andrew that Andrew was replying to. So there could well be more. And I think the monarchy needs to take this really, really seriously because otherwise it could cause long-term, long-term damage to the reputation of the monarchy that may be very difficult to undo.

18:36Right, on that note, I'm going to take a quick break. So just a reminder to rate or review The Royal Reports on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your favourite shows. And if you are watching the video podcast, which now comes in video form, then please subscribe on YouTube. And next up, we have a story about Harry and Meghan on the red carpet.

18:59Hello and welcome back to the show. Harry and Meghan were in New York last week where they were given a Humanitarians of the Year Award. So the Duke and Duchess of Sussex attended the Project Healthy Minds Gala, which was on the 9th of October at Spring Studios. And they walked the red carpet and they gave speeches and they collected this award. So there were some lighthearted moments. There was a point on the carpet when Harry put his hand on Meghan's bum and then she kind of moved it off. So that got social media going crazy and went viral. But there was a kind of really serious point underneath it all as well, which was about the impact of social media and digital technology on the mental health of children.

19:36There was also some backlash against them, as there often is. Although, actually, I do think it was a bit unfair on this occasion. the general thrust of it was that they don't deserve the award because, you know, they've not done anything, they're all after profit and not done anything humanitarian enough. And that should have gone maybe to somebody who helped in Gaza or something like that. But I will kind of explain a little bit why actually I'm, I'm not personally too worried about that on this occasion. I think, you know, Gaza is an incredibly important issue and I'm hugely relieved that the fighting for now has stopped.

20:12um but actually you know this particular gala is not you know it's not the nobel peace prize it's not world famous and they are always given to somebody who can elevate the reach and kind of audience and exposure of the award and so it yes the award technically was given to harry and megan but it was also given in you know recognition of a particular issue because harry and megan were given it for their work drawing attention to the impact of social media and technology on the mental health of teenagers. And Harry, particularly in his speech, in his kind of award speech when he collected it and said a few words, he highlighted a particular law firm that has been trying to sue digital technology companies and make them financially liable when a teenager basically takes their own life because of something that's happened to them online, where it's considered to be the fault of the actual technology itself.

21:12um so that if you think about that cause you know this is an organization that has set out to try to draw more attention to that particular cause to that particular issue and in all honesty i don't think you can find fault with that so that you can say harry and megan have been chasing profit or they made loads of money out of netflix or harry's book or they shouldn't have you know uh they shouldn't have trashed the royal family or whatever you might want to say but like this is the real world this award has to promote itself it has to market itself all of these kind of smaller rewards They all do it.

21:43They all pick a really high profile, big name celebrity in order to increase their exposure and try and get like a recognizable face at their gala so they can get press coverage. They all do it. And, you know, sometimes I, you know, on my show, I tell people to be less cynical about things. But actually, this is a situation where you almost need to be more cynical in the sense that you need to be more realistic. Like this is just something that happens. And actually, I cannot fault them for wanting to shine a spotlight on this cause. and Harry made a very compelling case, actually, in his speech, because I'm going to read you some sections of it.

22:15He basically highlighted that this particular law firm has been working with 4 ,000 families who have been affected by this issue, and some of its court cases involve teenagers who have taken their own lives. So obviously this is a hugely, hugely, hugely important issue. So the law firm in particular is called the Social Media Victims Law Centre, and one of its lawsuits is a 14-year-old kid who died in February and he was talking to an AI chatbot. So they are trying to basically make the company that ran that chatbot accountable for the things that the chatbot was saying to him, which they argue precipitated his taking his own life.

22:57So Harry said, Tonight we are all here together to focus on what remains one of the most pressing issues of our time. Let me share a number with you, 4 ,000. That's how many families the Social Media Victims Law Center is currently representing. Families whose children have been harmed or lost forever to social media. 4 ,000 cases at just one law firm. And that number represents only those parents who have been able to link their child's circumstances to social media use. Parents who have learned legal action is possible, who have the capacity to pursue it while grieving, and parents who found their way to help in the fight back against some of the wealthiest, most powerful corporations in the world.

23:39And even after this, there may be no road to closure for grieving parents because these companies refuse to disclose their children's information and activity on their platforms. If these were unintended consequences 10 years ago, what are they now? So that last little bit on the end there is basically saying that, you know, there might have been a point when social media companies or digital technology companies in the case of AI, walked into these kinds of situations where they were causing unintentional harm without knowing what the consequences of their platforms would be. But he's saying, you know, we're 10 years on.

24:16I'm not entirely sure why he made 2015 the key date, but, you know, 10 years on, he's saying they really can't kind of wash their hands of it and say that they sleepwalked into this situation anymore because so much time has passed. and you know he argues anyway that the problems have not been solved also i should say you know he talks about 4 000 people 4 000 families at just one law firm it's worth pointing out that this is a law firm that has decided to specialize in creating a kind of judicial precedent so they're pursuing litigation in an area that's fairly untested like this concept that social media is a product that can cause harm in the same way as you know a faulty microwave that blows up when you try and eat your food, you know, you were in starts of fire, there would be a health and safety case to be brought against the company.

25:03So this law firm is trying to argue that social media functions in the same way and that if an AI chatbot starts saying like pernicious, toxic things to a teenager that causes them to commit an irreversible act against themselves, then that is the equivalent of a malfunctioning product and that they should be accountable and liable financially via the same law that would govern your microwave. So it's actually a really interesting concept. And, you know, obviously, Harry and Meghan didn't come up with it. They didn't dream it up. They didn't invent it. But actually, if they do pursue this and they stay with it and they stay in touch with this law firm, you know, these cases are going to start coming to court at some point.

25:43And if this I don't know what the outcome is going to be, it might be that the law firm loses and that all these families lose, which will be heartbreaking to add to the grief of the loss that they're already experiencing. But on the other hand, you know, if some of these families start winning and some of these cases make it over the line, then that could be a game changer for the technology industry. And, you know, Harry and Meghan could have a genuine role to play in raising the profile and helping get some of this stuff onto the mainstream news outlets, you know, onto, whether it's, I don't know, CBS or ABC or whatever.

26:16But they could have a significant impact in raising the profile of these litigations. I don't think Harry and Meghan are at the point that they're going to file any litigations of this kind themselves or kind of, you know, get actively involved in the actual legal fight. Harry's had enough of his own. He's got one left. He's been fighting litigations now since 2019. So I think he's probably quite looking forward to getting out of the courts. But if they can kind of keep shining a spotlight on this issue in the more old school royal way of doing things then i think that could be something that builds and grows and becomes something really big so i think you know i can understand why some people want to say oh look at the situation in gaza harry and megan what are they even doing and actually for what's worth i would rather harry and megan had said more about gaza personally but um that's a subject i've talked about before it's a you know conversation for another time i don't have any problem with them getting an award for this particular project.

27:15I think it's super, super important. I'm a parent myself. I'm really worried about what's going to happen, you know, when the day eventually comes, when social media enters our lives at that kind of, you know, parental level. So I'm glad to see them shining a spotlight on something that I care about. And I think a lot of parents will feel the same way. I think a lot of parents just want to know what they should do, what they can't do, and want to better understand what they should be looking out for and the risks that social media and digital technology paid to their kids. And honestly, this whole thing about the damage that AI chatbots do was new to me.

27:54I've not really come across that before. So even just on that basis alone, that this award was the means through which I came across the fact that there are parents raising serious, serious concerns about the bond that their child is forming with an AI chatbot that, you know, who knows what it's even saying. You know, you can't know. Your kid's up in their bedroom chatting to an AI and you don't know what's being said. And then something terrible can happen as a consequence. So I think it's a really important issue and I'm pleased to see them looking at it. And I think it's one they should stick with and try and do more on.

28:32after all i'm very much of the view that you know harry and megan need to start doing more on the ground charity work in america it's all very well and good for harry to come back to the uk and visit his the charities that he worked with when he was a working royal and you know that's great and i have no problem with that and i think that was a good thing but i think they should be doing much more in america to show americans that they care that they want to give back and like getting away you know i'm not i have no problem with the galas but also getting away from the galas and to some also away from the summits you know summits don't really land the point effectively enough i think they need to get kind of more hands-on um dealing you know face-to-face talking to people who have had bad experiences and you know in their old school you know royal format where they go and visit an initiative visit a cause visit a charity or an organization and, you know, get to meet some of the people that that project helps and, you know, shine a spotlight on something really important.

29:38And, you know, just one more thing to finish on, Megan gave a little speech as well. And she said, like so many parents, we think constantly about how to embrace technology's benefits while safeguarding against its dangers. That hopeful intention of separation is rapidly becoming impossible so obviously she's kind of bringing the conversation back home to you know her own family and their kids prince archie and princess lilibet and their own concerns as well about them using social media and having access to that technology and also like just the impossibility that it won't one day happen which i think is what a lot of parents feel you know a lot of parents are in a position like mine where it's not a part of you know that it's not part of my son's life yet um i would hope to put off the day it is for as long as possible but it is inevitable that it will come around one day and that really is the cause of the concern and the worry and the anxiety i'm going to take one more quick break but before i do a reminder to follow me on x formerly twitter i'm at jack underscore royston you will find all my latest stories for newsweek and when i'm back a grieving mother whose husband took his own life just days after their one-year-old son died has brought prince william to tears