Virginia Giuffre memoir on sale piles pressure on Prince Andrew

London: The memoir of one of Jeffrey Epstein’s main accusers whose claims sparked the downfall of Britain’s Prince Andrew went on sale Tuesday, pumping up the pressure on the scandal-hit brother of King Charles III.

The publication of Virginia Giuffre’s book has refocused attention on the Epstein saga in both Britain and the US, where a row rages over the release of files on the disgraced financier and sex offender.

In the UK, the re-emergence of allegations that she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times, including when she was still only 17, prompted the prince on Friday to renounce his royal title and honours, under pressure from Charles.

Giuffre, a US and Australian citizen, took her own life in April aged 41, leaving behind her posthumous memoir “Nobody’s Girl”.

“She would view it as a victory that he was forced - by whatever means - to voluntarily give them up,” the book’s ghostwriter, Amy Wallace, told the BBC, referring to Andrew’s titles.

“His life is being eroded because of his past behaviour,” she added, saying Andrew renouncing his Duke of York title was “a step in the right direction”.

The ghostwriter urged him to cooperate with lawmakers in the United States still probing Epstein’s crimes.

“He could say, as he has repeatedly, ‘I still deny that I was involved... however... I saw things, and I know how much these women have suffered and I would like to share what I saw.’”

US Congressman Pete Sessions, who is on a Congressional oversight committee investigating Epstein, echoed the sentiment.

“It would be interesting to see what he did know, what he did see,” he told BBC Radio.

Andrew, 65, who has continued to deny any wrongdoing, agreed to pay Giuffre millions of dollars in 2022 to end her civil sexual assault case against him.

In the book, she reportedly recounts three sexual encounters with him - one of which she claims was an orgy including Epstein, the prince and “eight other young girls”.

Andrew, who quit a trade envoy position in 2011 after a string of other controversies, relinquished his royal duties and HRH title in 2019 following a disastrous TV interview about Giuffre’s claims.

He now faces renewed calls to lose his title of prince, alongside demands for more transparency of his finances and housing arrangements.

It comes as Charles prepares for a two-day Vatican state visit starting Wednesday.

The Times reported Tuesday Andrew has not paid rent for two decades on the 30-room Royal Lodge in Windsor, west of London, where he lives with ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.

It stems from a seemingly favourable 2003 deal for the mansion owned by the Crown Estate, the royal family’s independently run land and property holdings whose profits go to UK taxpayers.

In return for spending 8.5 million pounds ($11.4 million) upfront on a lease and refurbishments, Andrew was not required to pay annual rent and can stay there until 2078, according to The Times.

Senior Conservative MP Robert Jenrick was among those to hit out, telling the newspaper it was “about time Prince Andrew took himself off to live in private” as “the public are sick of him”.

In the US, the so-called Epstein files have been the focal point of the controversy engulfing Trump’s second presidency.

In 2019 Epstein, the president’s one-time friend, took his own life while in prison awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

Giuffre was recruited into Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking network when she was a 17-year-old minor while working at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in 2000, saying in the book she feared she would “die a sex slave.”

Giuffre claimed she was approached there by Ghislaine Maxwell, who was later jailed in 2022 for helping Epstein sexually abuse girls.

Trump appeared to be on good terms with Epstein during this time, praising him as a “terrific guy” in a 2002 New York Magazine profile.

In the book, Giuffre recounts being introduced to Trump by her father, with the property developer asking her “do you babysit at all”.

“Soon I was making money a few nights a week, minding the children of the elite,” she said in an excerpt published by Vanity Fair.