The family of Virginia Giuffre has released an emotional statement after news one of her alleged abusers, Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom, has been stripped of his royal title.
On Thursday, Buckingham Palace announced that Andrew, who publicly relinquished his royal duties in 2019 over his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, will no longer be known as “Prince,” “His Royal Highness” or the “Duke of York.” He will go by the name Andrew Mountbatten Windsor from now on.
Giuffre, who died at the age of 41 earlier this year, was one of Epstein’s earliest and most prominent public accusers. She also accused the disgraced financier and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, of forcing her to have sex with Windsor on multiple occasions, first when she was just 17 years old.
Attorney David Boies (second right) appears beside several of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged victims, including Virginia Giuffre (second left) in New York on Aug. 27, 2019. Bloomberg via Getty Images
Reacting to the news in a statement to People magazine, Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts, and his wife, Amanda Roberts, said, “Today, an ordinary American girl from an ordinary American family brought down a British prince with her truth and extraordinary courage.”
“Virginia Roberts Giuffre, our sister, a child when she was sexually assaulted by Andrew, never stopped fighting for accountability for what had happened to her and to countless other survivors like her,” the statement went on. “Today, she declares victory.”
On Thursday, Buckingham Palace announced that royal Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, here in September 2015, was officially being stripped of his titles. Max Mumby/Indigo via Getty Images
Windsor reached an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre in 2022, but in a statement stemming from the settlement, he expressed regret for his links to Epstein without admitting any guilt or offering an explicit apology.
Giuffre detailed how she allegedly first met Windsor in 2001 in her posthumous memoir, “Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice,” which was released in October.
Buckingham Palace’s decision comes amid increased scrutiny over President Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Epstein and calls for the Department of Justice to publicly release documents related to criminal investigations into the late financier, who died in jail in 2019.
