Why DID the royals pay Virginia Giuffre £12million?

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor famously declared that he had no recollection of ever meeting Virginia Giuffre – a victim of his sex trafficking friend Jeffrey Epstein.

However, that did not prevent the former prince from paying a reported £12million to settle her sexual abuse lawsuit against him in 2022, albeit with no admission of liability.

Ms Giuffre, who was pictured with Andrew’s arm around her waist when she was a teenager in 2001, alleged that she was forced into sexual encounters with him on three separate occasions when she was 17 years old. 

‘I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady,’ Andrew asserted in his disastrous 2019 interview with the BBC, ‘none whatsoever’.

He memorably went on to explain how Ms Giuffre’s claims against him could not be true because, among other things, he had taken his daughter Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking on the date of one allegation.

Picking apart other details of her claims, Andrew said he could not have plied her with alcohol at London’s Tramp night-club, because he had never bought a drink there and didn’t even know where the bar was.

And contrary to what she was saying, he could not have had a sweaty dance with her in the same establishment, as he had a medical condition which meant he could not sweat.

Despite repeated vehement denials of any wrongdoing, Andrew settled with Ms Giuffre out of court in 2022 to avoid a humiliating public jury trial that posed a reputational risk to the Royal Family.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor famously declared that he had no recollection of ever meeting Virginia Giuffre – a victim of his sex trafficking friend Jeffrey Epstein

Such exposure would have been particularly awkward during his mother’s Platinum Jubilee year. It was understood that around £7million of the payout came from the late Queen as a ‘loan’, with a further £3million from the estate of his father Prince Philip. 

A further £1.5million was reported to have been contributed by other members of the Royal Family.

However, sources close to King Charles later confirmed that he was not among them.

Andrew’s personal finances have raised a lot of eyebrows over the years, including his mysterious deals and gifts from foreign tycoons and officials.