Ghislaine Maxwell says she has ‘no memory’ of Prince Andrew ever meeting Virginia Giuffre [Video]

Embarrassed sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has claimed she “doesn’t remember” Prince Andrew and Virginia Guiffre, and that the infamous image of them together is false.

In his first broadcast interview since his prison term, Maxwell, 61, insisted he has no recollection of the couple spending time together in the UK or the US.

The infamous snapshot of the couple, which was allegedly taken in March 2001 at Maxwell’s apartment, was given by Ms Guiffre to The Mail on Sunday in February 2011.

Ms Guiffre, formerly Roberts, claimed she was forced to have sex with the Prince when she was 17, after being trafficked by convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who in 2019 was found dead in his prison cell.

In the revealing interview, which will air on Jeremy Kyle’s TalkTV tomorrow night at 7pm, Maxwell said: “I don’t remember them meeting. And I don’t think that photo is real.

‘It’s a fake. I don’t think it’s real for a second, in fact I’m sure it isn’t.

‘There has never been an original, there is no photograph.’

She added: ‘There is no original of that photo, (only) copies of copies and parts of it, according to some experts, appear to have been Photoshopped. I don’t remember her at home.

Announcing the show, called ‘Ghislaine Behind Bars’, Kyle told viewers: ‘Maxwell lifts the lid on Epstein, Prince Andrew and even our late Queen. This is Ghislaine Maxwell behind bars and in her own words.

The interview comes as Prince Andrew will launch a dramatic offer to void the multi-million dollar deal he struck with Ms Guiffre in a bid to get him to recant his sexual assault accusations and possibly get an apology.

The Duke of York took action after Ms Guiffre withdrew her lawsuit last year against Epstein’s former lawyer Alan Dershowitz, whom she also accused of sexual assault, admitting she “might have made a mistake” in identifying him.

Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for procuring girls for her late lover and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, said: “I know Virginia traveled with Jeffrey, so it’s very possible.”

“It wasn’t something so outrageously out of left field that it couldn’t have happened.

But the photo does not appear to be real. And I don’t remember that they took it. I have no recollection of the meeting of Virginia and Prince Andrew.

In February of last year, Andrew agreed to pay Virginia, 39, a settlement to drop her civil action, but he did not accept fault and continues to vigorously deny any wrongdoing.

But the scandal significantly damaged his reputation and made him an outcast from the Royal Family. He was stripped of his military titles and asked not to use his Royal Highness title from him.

New evidence, seen by The Mail on Sunday, prompted him to consult with lawyers in the US in hopes of forcing a retraction.

People close to Andrew have claimed he wanted to fight the allegations in court, but Palace forces convinced him to agree to a deal they feared the negative publicity of the case would overshadow the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

“Andrew felt like he was in a pressure cooker, like he had no choice but to settle,” a source said. But he never wanted to settle and has always insisted that he was innocent. He wants to see what legal avenues may be available to him.

The duke previously said he “doesn’t remember” meeting Ms Giuffre and cast doubt on the image, saying she is “not someone to hug” or “show affection” in public.

In an interview with BBC Newsnight in 2019, Andrew said that although he recognized himself in the photo with Ms Giuffre, he stated that it was not possible to prove whether the image had been faked.

He also claimed that the photo could not have been taken in London as he was in his ‘travel clothes’.

Giuffre insisted to BBC Panorama that the photo was “authentic” and said he gave the original to the FBI in 2011.

In 2019, a BBC Panorama investigation found that Guiffre’s then-boyfriend, Tony Figueroa, said he saw the photo in the year it was taken, 2001, and that Guiffre told him she had been forced to have sex with the prince. .

Journalist Michael Thomas, who first copied the photo in 2011, told the show he was convinced the image is genuine because he found it in the middle of a package of photos.

He said: “It wasn’t like she took the picture of Prince Andrew, she was among the rest of them.”

‘They were just typical adolescent snapshots. There’s no way that photo is fake.’

Last year, Prince Andrew’s ex, Lady Victoria Hervey, said the infamous image was fake.

He claimed it had been pieced together using a photo taken at Naomi Campbell’s birthday party aboard a yacht in St Tropez in May 2001, in which Virginia can be seen wearing the same white tank top with colorful patterned jeans. .

However, Lady Victoria did not have an exact copy of the photo of Virginia from St Tropez which she claimed was used to fake the image of Prince Andrew, and has never been seen publicly.

Lady Victoria added to his baffling claims by saying that an “Irish guy” who was dating one of Epstein’s victims in 2001 and also attended the boat party was used as a “body double” for Prince Andrew. in the “fake” image.

Maxwell, whom Ms Guiffre also accused of grooming her for sexual abuse, said during the interview: “I have read many of her statements, and her statements are very categorical and her stories very detailed and elaborate, including the claim that she He went to his (Dershowitz’s) house.

‘So I think your ‘memory lapses’ are fake. If his memory is so poor, how can you trust what he says?

“When you go into a lot of detail and make claims that last for five, six or seven years, and then suddenly, at the last moment, you decide it was a lapse in memory, I find it hard to believe.”

Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year after a jury found her guilty of luring girls to massage parlors for Epstein to molest between 1994 and 2004.

Epstein was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.