Ghislaine Maxwell calls Prince Andrew a ‘best friend’: Duke’s dream of rehabilitation could be shattered

Prince Andrew was dragged back into the Jeffrey Epstein sex abuse scandal last night after pedophile conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell hailed the Duke of York as a ‘best friend’.

Her amazing comments – in an exclusive in-prison interview with The Mail on Sunday – contradict Andrew’s denial to a US court that they had been close.

The intervention of 60-year-old Maxwell — a convicted sex trafficker described in court as an “advanced predator” — is a devastating blow to the Duke’s hopes of returning to public life after actually getting out of prison this year. royal family was disowned.

Maxwell, who was convicted of helping Epstein abuse teenage girls, ignored the suggestion that she and Andrew had been a couple, stating, “I care about him.”

Her comments come as the MoS today unveiled a new photo of the disgraced former socialite taken this year at New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) before she was transferred to a Florida jail to face her 20-year-old. to serve a year in prison.

In a series of further revelations, she says:

• claimed that a photo of the prince and prosecutor Virginia Roberts “isn’t real” and that there are “more than 50 problems” with it’;

• Recounted how a fellow inmate had plotted to kill her while she was sleeping;

• described her “special friendship” with President Bill Clinton, who she claimed was “another victim” of association with Epstein;

• Speaking of her gratitude to Donald Trump for wishing her the best after her arrest, said his comments gave her a “big boost”;

• She complained that she was portrayed as a “wicked witch” Disney character and accused the media of “monstrous inaccuracies”;

• She revealed that she was crammed into a small cell with three other inmates and spoke of the “humiliation” of being put on suicide watch.

Prince Andrew, 62, was stripped of his military titles and royal patronage in January when he fought allegations that he abused Mrs. Roberts, one of Epstein’s victims, as a teenager in London, Manhattan and the US Virgin Islands.

He has repeatedly and vehemently denied the allegations. He settled out of court with Mrs. Roberts, who now uses her married name Giuffre, for an undisclosed amount, but did not plead guilty.

A legal document presented to a US court by the Duke’s lawyers in January contained 41 separate denials of allegations by Ms. Roberts, including her claim that “Prince Andrew was a close friend of Ghislaine Maxwell.”

But in her MoS interview, Maxwell spoke in glowing terms about her friendship with the Duke. “I feel so sorry for him,” said the disgraced former socialite, who has known Andrew since attending Oxford University in the 1980s.

“Yes, I follow what’s happening to him. He pays such a price for the association [with Jeffrey Epstein]. I consider him a dear friend…I care about him.’

Asked about the denial by Andrew’s lawyers that they were close friends, Maxwell said, “I accept that this friendship would not survive my conviction.”

She dismissed a photo, first revealed by this newspaper, of the Prince with his arm around Mrs Roberts at Maxwell’s home in Belgravia, central London, in March 2001, saying: ‘I don’t recognize that photo and I don’t believe it. is a real photo. There are so many things wrong with it. There is no original and there is no real image and there are so many other things I can’t think of… I don’t know how many points there are, but there are more than 50 problems with the photo.”

Earlier this year, Euan Rellie, a former friend of Maxwell’s, told ITV that he believed she and Andrew were “probably girlfriend and boyfriend in the past.”

Asked about press reports that they were “as a couple, an item,” Maxwell said she would not comment on such speculation until after the appeal against her conviction. “I’ve read and seen and heard so many monstrous inaccuracies and reported that I can’t pull them all apart. If I take one apart and then don’t address everyone else, it will say, “Well, she said no to this one, and all the others?” I’m not going to talk about that until after the appeal.’

She has been in prison since July 2020 when more than 20 armed FBI agents raided her 156-acre, £800,000 home in New Hampshire.

The MoS interviewed her in the MDC on June 22 of this year, six days before she was sentenced and weeks later after she was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, a low-security prison in Florida.

She was willing to discuss her friendships with some of the rich and powerful men associated with her and Epstein, including former President Clinton.

“It was a special friendship that lasted through the years,” she said of Clinton. “We had a lot in common. I feel bad that he is another victim just because of his association [with Epstein].’

She also expressed her gratitude to former President Trump for wishing her well after her arrest.

“I was very grateful when he wished me well. He got bad media for it, but he dared while others didn’t. It gave me a huge boost.’

Maxwell said the food at the MDC was “really awful” and that she was once so hungry that she ate petroleum jelly. She is now in a 3-meter by 2-meter cell that is too small for her and her three cellmates to all stand up. “It’s far from a fun country club,” she said.

After Epstein committed suicide while awaiting trial, prison officers put her on suicide watch prior to her sentencing. Maxwell, who said she’d never contemplated suicide, described wearing an anti-suicide smock—a long tunic made of thick nylon—and added, “They rob you of whatever dignity you have left. They have you without clothes, and they put you in a suicide smock with Velcro on it. So there’s nothing to protect your modesty.’

The MoS revealed in June that a fellow inmate of the MDC had bragged that she was going to kill Maxwell, claiming there was a $1 million bounty on her head. Maxwell confirmed this weekend that a woman had threatened to kill her while she was sleeping.

Maxwell now works in the prison law library, helping other inmates with their cases.

Prince Andrew declined to comment last night.