Prince Andrew says he regrets staying with Jeffrey Epstein
Prince Andrew has expressed regret over staying at the home of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying it was the “wrong thing to do.”
“It was a convenient place to stay,” the prince, who is Queen Elizabeth II’s son, said of Epstein’s home in a BBC interview.
“I mean I’ve gone through this in my mind so many times. At the end of the day, with a benefit of all the hindsight that one can have, it was definitely the wrong thing to do,” he added. “But at the time I felt it was the honorable and right thing to do, and I admit fully that my judgement was probably colored by my tendency to be too honorable but that’s just the way it is.”
In the Thursday interview with “BBC Newsnight,” the prince also denied the allegation by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre that she was forced to have sex with him three times between 2001, when she was 17, and 2002.
“It didn’t happen. I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever,” he said.
A photograph of Giuffre with the prince has surfaced.
Epstein died in jail this year while he awaited a trial for sex trafficking charges in an incident that was ruled a suicide.
He had been convicted of a sexual misconduct charge in 2008, and his lenient plea agreement drew renewed scrutiny after a Miami Herald report last year.
Epstein’s high-profile contacts with the prince, President Trump and former President Clinton have received scrutiny. The men have denied wrongdoing.
Prince Andrew in a statement released in August said it was a “mistake” to meet Epstein after Epstein was released from prison in 2010.
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