‘Prince Andrew’s Epstein email sent a shiver down my spine,' says Emily Maitlis
Prince Andrew is accused of maintaining a friendship with Jeffrey Epstein for at least a year later than he previously claimed to have cut all communications, suggesting he lied to Emily Maitlis during their 2019 interview. How does she feel about this new revelation?
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In brief…
- New details of Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein have emerged, with leaked emails reportedly showing he was still in contact with the convicted sex trafficker in 2011, despite having claimed to have cut all ties in 2010.
- Emily Maitlis, who interviewed Prince Andrew about his friendship with Epstein in 2019, says reading the email – in which he promised the pair would “play some more soon” sent a shiver down her spine.
- She says knowing he may have lied about such a key fact in the interview, makes her re-question everything else he said at the time.
What’s the story?
Prince Andrew's relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is once again under the spotlight.
This time, he's accused of staying in contact with Epstein for at least a year after he previously claimed to have cut ties.
The prince reportedly sent an email to Epstein, claiming the pair were "in this together" and promising they would "play some more soon", after the infamous photo of him, Ghislane Maxwell and now-deceased victim Virginia Giuffre was first made public in 2011.
Andrew previously claimed to have cut all ties with Epstein in 2010, two years after the former financier pleaded guilty to charges of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor.
He made those claims in his 2019 interview with Emily Maitlis for the BBC's Newsnight.
But contact continued, according to details obtained by UK tabloids.
Prince Andrew has denied any involvement with Giuffre, and previously suggested that the photo of himself, Maxwell and Giuffre may have been doctored.
What Prince Andrew claimed in 2019
Speaking to Emily for the BBC, where he claimed his 2010 visit to Epstein in New York was to end the friendship face-to-face, was his attempt to make himself seem honourable, she says.
"He was basically trying to create an impression, that it was something he felt it was important to do in person, because a lot was resting on it, and that as the Duke of York, it would be honourable for him to tell him in person," Emily says.
There is a photo of the two men in New York's Central Park during this visit, when Andrew claims he ended the friendship with Epstein in person.
"We don't know exactly why that picture was taken, but much of the reporting around it has suggested it was because Epstein would find it useful to have a picture of the two of them together," she adds.
"This latest email now tells us, clarifies, that the relationship continues, and not just continues, but continues with a sense of, 'let's have more fun'."
The email is believed to have been sent two months after Andrew's New York visit.
What's Emily Maitlis's take?
"People often ask me – did you believe Andrew? Did you believe he was telling the truth? I've never gone down that line," Emily says.
"I was the journalist. I was the interviewer. I just want to make sure I asked the questions for those who had questions to be asked."
And while that remains the case to this day, she says revelations such as the newly uncovered email, force people to examine the interview in a different light.
"As soon as you find a smoking gun like this email – if it turns out to be true and correct and well reported – it makes you re-question everything you know about the interview itself," Emily says.
"It makes you look at his face in a particular way, look at the tone of his words in a particular way, look at where his gaze is in a particular way.
“You wonder if he's actually lying about everything else as well. Now that isn't to say that he is lying, but it opens the door and you suddenly realise that if he wasn't on particularly stable ground there, as has been disproved by subsequent events, then how do we know that any of it was true?"
But it is Prince Andrew's phrase "play some more soon", which he signed off the email with, that she finds hardest to swallow.
"The thing I cannot get over is this idea that he told me that he was being honourable, and was too honourable to break off a friendship in a text or a letter, and then that email says we'll 'play some more soon'," she says.
"What does that even mean? It sends shivers down my spine.
"It might all be well meaning. It might all be in the purest sense of the word play, but by God, I would not want to be saying that to a convicted paedophile."