Emily Maitlis recently claimed that Prince Andrew deceived her about his interactions with Jeffrey Epstein during their notable BBC Newsnight interview in 2019.
According to a report by the Mail on Sunday, the former Duke of York sent an email to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2011, stating they were “in this together.” This revelation contradicts Andrew’s previous assertion to the BBC journalist that their last communication was in December 2010.
“The email that surfaced last week clearly proves that his statement regarding their last contact in December 2010 was false,” Maitlis remarked over the weekend. She expressed that she has become increasingly aware of the inconsistencies throughout the interview.
In an interview with the Observer, Maitlis disclosed that the newly discovered email led her to revisit the notorious interview for the first time in six years, as she felt it necessary to “reassess everything.”
During the 2019 Newsnight interview, Prince Andrew claimed he cut ties with Epstein in December 2010, following their widely publicized walk in New York.
However, emails revealed by the Mail on Sunday last week indicated that Andrew had emailed Epstein as recently as February 2011, affirming “we are in this together” just a day after a photograph of him with Virginia Giuffre came to light.
The email ended with the line: ‘We’ll play some more soon!!!!!’
Pictured: Emily Maitlis (left) and Prince Andrew (right) in the now infamous 2019 BBC Newsnight interview
In the interview, Prince Andrew (right) told Emily Maitlis (left) that his last contact with disgraced paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was in December 2010 – despite emails revealed by the MoS showing a message sent from Andrew to Epstein as late as February 2011
Pictured: Prince Andrew (left) with Virginia Giuffre (middle) and Ghislaine Maxwell (right)
Maitlis added that she believed more will come to light about the Epstein files.
‘I think we know 1% of the Epstein files. Britain is fixated on the Prince and his titles.
‘We might be talking about 1,000 victims and 30 to 50 paedophiles,’ the former BBC presenter said.
In his disastrous 2019 interview with BBC Newsnight, Andrew told interviewer Emily Maitlis that ‘categorically I don’t remember meeting her at all’.
Pressed repeatedly whether he was saying ‘categorically’ that he could not remember Ms Giuffre, Andrew replied: ‘Yep.’
He also suggested that an infamous photograph of him with his arm around Ms Giuffre’s waist could have been a crude forgery, saying: ‘Nobody can prove whether or not that photograph has been doctored but I don’t recollect that photograph ever being taken.’
But in a message to Epstein on February 25, 2011, two days before the MoS published an interview with Ms Giuffre and revealed the picture, Andrew appeared to accept he could have met her.
Apparently updating Epstein on the MoS’s approach to him for comment ahead of the story being published, he wrote: ‘Categoric denial of Sexual Relations. Possible that I met her in a group with others and possible there is a photograph.’
He accused the MoS of ‘just gratuitously trying it on… ably abetted by Miss Roberts [Virginia Giuffre] who they will have contacted as her identity will have been known from court records, I assume.’
The Prince added: ‘Not bothered any further about it but will keep watch.’
The revelation comes as a bombshell email obtained by this newspaper exposes how Andrew asked his taxpayer-funded Met bodyguard to investigate Virginia Giuffre and passed him her date of birth and confidential social security number.
Astonishingly, Andrew then told Ed Perkins, Queen Elizabeth’s deputy press secretary, that he had asked one of his personal protection officers – part of the Met’s elite SO14 Royalty Protection Group – to dig up information about Ms Giuffre.
He emailed Mr Perkins hours before this newspaper first published the infamous picture of the duke with 17-year-old Ms Giuffre, which would ultimately bring about his downfall.
‘It would also seem she has a criminal record in the [United] States,’ he wrote. ‘I have given her DoB [date of birth] and social security number for investigation with XXX, the on duty ppo [personal protection officer].’
It is not suggested that the officer complied with the prince’s request, while Ms Giuffre’s family last night said she did not have a criminal record.
Her relatives said our revelations ‘expose the lengths to which those implicated try to discredit and defame survivors. The truth will surface and there will be no shadows in which they can hide’.
A spokesperson for the Met told the MoS late on Saturday that they were ‘actively looking into the claims made.’
Prince Andrew was approached for comment.
