{"id":2104177,"date":"2025-10-20T19:50:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T19:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2104177"},"modified":"2025-10-20T19:50:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T19:50:27","slug":"prince-andrew-tried-to-hire-internet-trolls-to-hassle-virginia-giuffre-book-claims-prince-andrew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/prince-andrew-tried-to-hire-internet-trolls-to-hassle-virginia-giuffre-book-claims-prince-andrew\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Andrew tried to hire \u2018internet trolls\u2019 to hassle Virginia Giuffre, book claims | Prince Andrew"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

Prince Andrew\u2019s team tried to hire \u201cinternet trolls to hassle\u201d his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, while he hid behind the \u201cwell-guarded gates\u201d of Balmoral Castle to avoid being served court papers, according to allegations in her posthumous memoir.<\/p>\n

Giuffre wrote of the 2022 confidential settlement of her sexual abuse civil claim against the royal, widely rumoured to be $12m (\u00a39m), that her lawyers \u201cwere going to ask for the moon\u201d and her team had agreed it \u201chad to be more than mere money\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter casting doubt on my credibility for so long \u2013 Prince Andrew\u2019s team had even gone so far as to try to hire internet trolls to hassle me \u2013 the Duke of York owed me a meaningful apology as well,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would never get a confession, of course. That\u2019s what settlements are designed to avoid. But we were trying for the next best thing: a general acknowledgment of what I\u2019d been through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giuffre agreed to a one-year gag clause so as not to \u201ctarnish\u201d the late queen\u2019s platinum jubilee celebrations in 2022.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Virginia Giuffre with a photograph of herself at roughly the age when she says she was abused.<\/span> Photograph: Emily Michot\/TNS\/Zuma Press Wire\/Rex\/Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Giuffre died by suicide in April aged 41. Her memoir, Nobody\u2019s Girl,<\/a> published on Tuesday, comes amid growing pressure for Andrew to be officially stripped of his titles.<\/p>\n

Before its publication, the prince announced he would no longer use his Duke of York<\/a> or Knight of the Order of the Garter titles, which are extant but inactive.<\/p>\n

As King Charles visited Manchester on Monday to show his support to the Jewish community and those affected by the terrorist attack at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue on 2 October, pressure was growing on the royal family to go further<\/a> by backing a move to formally strip Andrew of his dukedom through parliamentary legislation.<\/p>\n

Downing Street would not be drawn on the matter, with the prime minister\u2019s official spokesperson saying the question of legislation was \u201ca matter for the palace in the first instance\u201d and ministers \u201csupport the judgment of the king\u201d regarding Andrew\u2019s titles.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe prime minister\u2019s thoughts are very much with the victims and survivors of Jeffrey Epstein<\/a> who suffered and continue to suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan police was \u201cactively\u201d looking into claims<\/a> Andrew passed Giuffre\u2019s date of birth and social security number to his police protection officer in an attempt to dig up dirt for a smear campaign, after reports in the Mail on Sunday.<\/p>\n

A Buckingham Palace source said the new allegations were of \u201cvery serious and grave concern\u201d and should be \u201cexamined in the appropriate way\u201d.<\/p>\n

They said action was needed because of \u201cwhat lies at the heart of this, the broader allegations and the issues highlighted\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Mail on Sunday reported that Andrew had embarked on an effort to smear Giuffre in 2011. The prince\u2019s alleged attempt, on which the officer is not said to have acted, came hours before the newspaper first published the photograph of Andrew with Giuffre.<\/p>\n

In her book, Giuffre repeats her allegations, published in an exclusive extract by the Guardian<\/a>, that she was forced to have sex with the prince on three occasions, including when she was 17 and also during an orgy after being trafficked by the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew vehemently denies the allegations.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Giuffre also claims her legal case against Andrew was strengthened by the royal\u2019s own words in his disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis when he insisted he had no memory of meeting Giuffre, failed to apologise for his friendship with Epstein and failed to articulate any compassion for Epstein\u2019s victims.<\/p>\n

The immediate fallout saw him forced to withdraw from public life \u201cfor the foreseeable future\u201d.<\/p>\n

Giuffre wrote: \u201cAs devastating as this interview was for Prince Andrew, for my legal team it was like an injection of jet fuel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts contents would not only help us build an ironclad case against the prince but also open the door to potentially subpoenaing his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, and their daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book reads: \u201cDid he really take Beatrice out for pizza on March 10, 2001, as he claimed? If we deposed the princesses, his family members could potentially poke holes in his alibi.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould his medical records really show that he had a temporary case of anhidrosis (a lack of perspiration), which typically isn\u2019t a response to adrenaline? We weren\u2019t quite ready to sue yet, but this interview gave us a lot more to work with than we\u2019d had before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once she went ahead with her lawsuit, she said, the prince tried to hide at Balmoral. \u201cInitially, the prince made it difficult for my lawyers to serve him with papers, fleeing to Queen Elizabeth\u2019s Balmoral Castle in Scotland and hiding behind its well-guarded gates.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>In her memoir, Giuffre accuses Andrew of hiding from court action behind the walls of Balmoral Castle.<\/span> Photograph: Jane Barlow\/PA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A settlement was reached in 2022, thrashed out over \u201ctwo days of mediation talks\u201d. Giuffre read it through tears, she said.<\/p>\n

In it Andrew accepted she had suffered \u201cboth as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks\u201d. He also commended her and other survivors \u201cin standing up for themselves and others\u201d and said he\u2019d \u201cnever intended to malign [her] character\u201d.<\/p>\n

She wrote: \u201cI agreed to a one-year gag order, which seemed important to the prince because it ensured that his mother\u2019s Platinum Jubilee would not be tarnished any more than it already had been.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she gained \u201cmore out of\u201d Andrew than money because she had \u201can acknowledgment that I and many other women had been victimised and a tacit pledge to never deny it again\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said she looked forward to using the \u201cCrown\u2019s money to do some good\u201d and said she began developing her Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (Soar) foundation<\/a> to combat human trafficking.<\/p>\n

She also revealed how the conspiracy theories surrounding Diana, Princess of Wales\u2019s death affected her when she was allegedly forced to have sex with Andrew in London because she was \u201csurrounded by people who wielded vastly more clout than I ever would\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hadn\u2019t wanted to have sex with the prince, I said, but I felt I had to,\u201d she wrote, saying she believed there was no way to free herself from Epstein and Maxwell\u2019s grip.<\/p>\n

In her final chapter, Giuffre said: \u201cI don\u2019t regret it, but the constant telling and retelling has been extremely painful and exhausting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this book, I seek to free myself from my past. From now on, anyone who wants to know about what happened can sit down with Nobody\u2019s Girl and start reading.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giuffre wrote in an email to her co-writer Amy Wallace, after a car accident shortly before she died, that it was her \u201cheartfelt wish that this work be published, regardless of my circumstances at the time\u201d, and that it was still to be released in the event of her death.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe content of this book is crucial, as it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals across borders,\u201d she said in the email.<\/p>\n

The Metropolitan police has said it is \u201cactively\u201d looking into claims Andrew passed Giuffre\u2019s personal information to his police protection officer.<\/p>\n

The Mail on Sunday reported he is said to have emailed the late queen\u2019s then deputy press secretary, Ed Perkins, and told him of his request to his protection officer to investigate Guiffre, and also suggested she had a criminal record.<\/p>\n

The prince\u2019s alleged attempt, on which the police officer is not said to have acted, came in 2011, hours before the newspaper first published the photograph of Andrew with Giuffre. The newspaper said it obtained the email from disclosures held by the US Congress.<\/p>\n