Prince Andrew said he would be “duty-bound” to testify under oath about his interactions with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the accusations against himself.
“I’m like everybody else, and I would have to take all the legal advice that there was before I was to do that sort of thing,” he told the BBC in an interview that aired Saturday. “But if push came to shove and the legal advice was to do so, then I would be duty-bound to do so.”
“In the right circumstances, yes I would… there’s just as much closure for me as there is for everybody else.”
Prince Andrew tells @maitlis that if “push came to shove” he would testify over allegations regarding his conduct and his links to Jeffrey Epstein
#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/zZgo4vkl1x— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) November 16, 2019
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to a felony prostitution charge after he was accused of sexually abusing underage girls in the previous decade. The financier, who was arrested in July, was found dead in his prison cell in August. The New York City medical examiner’s office said Epstein died by suicide.
Prince Andrew’s association with the deceased billionaire is under renewed scrutiny after Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre said she was forced to have sex with the prince three times when she was underage. The prince said he has “no recollection of ever meeting” Giuffre and denied having sex with her.
Giuffre said she met Prince Andrew in 2001, when she was 17, and they dined and danced together. She alleged they had sex at Ghislaine Maxwell’s Belgravia home. Giuffre alleged Maxwell recruited her to have sex with Epstein she was 15.
“I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady.”
The Duke of York has spoken for the first time about his links to Jeffrey Epstein and the allegations against him https://t.co/YfWs2EAi6v
FULL INTERVIEW: Saturday 21:00 @BBCTwo with @maitlis#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/zy7jvnRPJp
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) November 15, 2019
A photo that Giuffre said was taken in 2001 shows Prince Andrew with his arm around her waist and Maxwell standing in the background.
He told BBC he has “absolutely no memory of that photograph ever being taken” but acknowledged that he was in the photograph. He suggested that the photo could be fake but said it would be difficult to prove.
Prince Andrew says of Virginia Giuffre: “I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever.”https://t.co/j8LAc6zls8 pic.twitter.com/UeqE7Z681e
— erica orden (@eorden) November 16, 2019
“That’s me, but whether that’s my hand or whether that’s the position … I have simply no recollection of the photograph ever being taken,” he said.
He also questioned the claim that the photograph was taken in London because of what he was wearing. He said he wears a suit and tie in London, and the clothes he was wearing in the photo are the types of outfits he wears when traveling.
Prince Andrew additionally said on the night that he is alleged to have met Giuffre he was at home with his children and took his daughter, Princess Beatrice, to a party at a pizza restaurant.
“On the date that’s being suggested I was at home with the children… I’d taken Beatrice to Pizza Express in Woking.”
Prince Andrew tells @maitlis he was elsewhere the night it has been claimed he had his photo taken with a woman who says they had sex
#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/XoDEALx5MJ— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) November 16, 2019
Prince Andrew was also asked about Giuffre’s recollection that he sweat a lot while they danced on the night she claims they met. He disputed the account, saying he had a “peculiar medical condition which is that I don’t sweat or I didn’t sweat at the time,” explaining that he was given too much adrenaline during the Falklands War when he was shot and it was “almost impossible for me to sweat.”
“I didn’t sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenalin in the Falkland’s War when I was shot at.”
Prince Andrew disputes claims he had a sweaty dance with a woman who made allegations against him https://t.co/gfKvOEFG9p #Newsnight pic.twitter.com/7ZKscPB5lX
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) November 16, 2019
He said the condition had been resolved in recent years.
