Prince Andrew Might Want to Come Up With a Better Excuse

Prince Andrew, Duke of York has an explanation for why he was spotted on camera hanging out at Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan sex-trafficking mansion in 2010. What is it, you ask? Why, he was there to friend-dump Epstein, of course. Nothing to see here! Move along!

“The duke has been hammered for one mistake, which took place in 2010,” a “source” told the Sunday Times (the article’s behind a paywall, but The Cut has more). “He has apologized again and again for the error of judgment. But what he did wasn’t criminal. It was a mistake. He went to see a friend to tell them he couldn’t be their friend anymore.”

It sure seems a tad strange that the Daily Mail just happened to find footage of Prince Andrew at Epstein’s mansion on the day he went to “end” their “friendship”! Certainly, by the principles of Occam’s Razor, it’s a smidge more likely Prince Andrew was at the mansion fairly often—like, say, to participate in Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, as he has in fact been accused of doing. Indeed, multiple women say the Duke of York was involved in Epstein’s ring and abused them, with one woman, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, having repeatedly gone public with her claim that she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew.

She told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie just last month: “He was an abuser, he was a participant…That first time in London—I was so young. Ghislane woke me up in the morning and said, ‘You’re going to meet a prince today.’ I didn’t know at that point that I was going to be trafficked to that prince.”