Featured Image Credit: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
Topics: Prince Andrew, Royal Family, Virginia Giuffre, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell
Britt Jones
Topics: Prince Andrew, Royal Family, Virginia Giuffre, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell
Prince Andrew has revealed he will give up his royal titles following his Jeffrey Epstein controversy, and Virginia Giuffre’s family has spoken out.
Prince Andrew has long received backlash for his friendship with the disgraced financer, who was arrested, charged, and sentenced for his role in what appeared to be a trafficking operation of young women and minors.
The prince has had had the public on his back in the UK for some time now, particularly after Giuffre sued him for sexual assault in 2021. The lawsuit was settled out of court with an undisclosed sum and Andrew admitted no wrongdoing.
In a statement, he said: "In discussion with The King, and my immediate and wider family, we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family.
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"I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life.
"With His Majesty's agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honors which have been conferred upon me.
"As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me."
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This news came just days before the publication of a memoir by the late Virginia Giuffre.
Giuffre alleged she was paid to have sex with the prince when she was 17. She died by suicide at her home in Australia in April this year at 41, just before her memoir Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice came out.
In the book, she claims that she had met Prince Andrew in March 2001 before being pressured by Ghislaine Maxwell to 'do for him what you do for Jeffrey'.
"The next morning, Maxwell told me: ‘You did well. The prince had fun,’" Giuffre wrote, and that Epstein paid her $15,000.
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To this new development, her family has spoken out, calling the move to remove Prince Andrew's titles ‘vindication’.
Her family said in a statement yesterday evening (October 17): “We, the family of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, believe that Prince Andrew’s decision to give up his titles is vindication for our sister and survivors everywhere.
“This decisive action is a powerful step forward in our fight to bring Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s child sex-trafficking network to justice.”
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Andrew will no longer use his remaining titles and honors, which includes his Duke of York title.
However, he will retain the dukedom, as only an Act of Parliament can remove it, and he will also give up his knighthood as a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO).
The Prince will see his Garter role as a Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter disappear too.
While The BBC reports his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, will not use her title as The Duchess of York, their daughters will continue to be princesses, and Andrew will continue to live in his home and be eighth in line to the throne.
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Prince Andrew has denied Giuffre’s allegations, while Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021 and Epstein passed away in prison in 2019.
UNILAD has previously reached out to Prince Andrew's representatives and Buckingham Palace for comment.