By Charmayne Allison, ABC
The Duke of York Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts (now Giuffre) and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2001. Photo: AFP
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor says he has "no recollection" of the photo, or the girl in it.
He's repeatedly suggested it might be a fake.
But 24 years after it was purportedly taken, this simple film image continues to haunt the former prince.
Allegedly snapped in 2001 by deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, it shows a younger Mountbatten-Windsor with his arm around a girl's waist.
Epstein's associate, convicted child sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, stands grinning to the side.
The girl, then-17-year-old Virginia Roberts Giuffre, would years later allege she had sex with the former prince three times after being trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell.
Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied the allegations, reaching an out-of-court settlement with Roberts Giuffre in 2022, which contained neither an admission of liability nor an apology.
But a newly released email from Epstein appears to contradict the former prince's repeated denials he was ever photographed with Roberts Giuffre.
"Yes, she was on my plane, and yes, she had her picture taken with Andrew, as many of my employees have," reads Epstein's email, written in July 2011 after the photo was first published.
Here is a closer look at the infamous photo Mountbatten-Windsor can't outrun.
'I was going to meet a handsome prince!'
The book "Nobody's Girl - A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice" by Virginia Roberts Giuffre includes various photos. Photo: AFP / Niklas Halle'n
Roberts Giuffre, who took her own life this year, wrote in her posthumous memoir, Nobody's Girl, about the day the photo was allegedly taken.
It was March 2001 and she was woken by Maxwell, who declared in a sing-song voice that "just like Cinderella, I was going to meet a handsome prince!"
Introduced to the royal that evening in the entry way of Maxwell's London home, she said she knew she had to capture the moment.
"My mom would never forgive me if I met someone as famous as Prince Andrew and didn't pose for a picture," she wrote in her memoir.
Roberts Giuffre said she ran to get a disposable camera from her room and handed it to Epstein.
"I remember the prince putting his arm around my waist as Maxwell grinned beside me. Epstein snapped the photo," she recalled.
Roberts Giuffre said she later took the camera to a one-hour photo developer near her Florida home, which branded the print with the date it was developed: March 13, 2001.
She showed the four-by-six image to her then-boyfriend.
"We had no idea what a commotion this photo would later cause," she said.
'The duke has quite chubby fingers'
The photo was first published by The Mail on Sunday in 2011 after the publication tracked down Roberts Giuffre in Australia.
They paid a combined US$160,000 (NZ$283,730) for the photo and two interviews.
It has since been recirculated in countless media reports, becoming an infamous symbol of Roberts Giuffre's allegations against the former prince.
In a disastrous 2019 interview with BBC Newsnight's Emily Maitlis, Mountbatten-Windsor dismissed the image, saying he had "no recollection" of then or ever meeting Roberts Giuffre.
He also claimed the image might have been doctored.
"From the investigations that we've done, you can't prove whether or not that photograph is faked or not because it is a photograph of a photograph of a photograph," he said.
The then-prince claimed he had "never seen Epstein with a camera" in his life, and questioned whether the photo was taken in London because in it, he was wearing "travelling clothes".
"When I go out in London, I wear a suit and a tie," he said.
The former Prince Andrew, pictured in September. Photo: Jordan Pettitt / Getty Images via CNN Newsource
He also questioned whether the hand around Roberts Giuffre's waist was his.
This claim was repeated in a 2019 story by the London Evening Standard.
"Look at his fingers in the photo," an unnamed source said.
"The duke has quite chubby fingers, they don't look right and nor does the height of the duke and the girl."
Where is the photo now?
In a 2016 deposition as part of a defamation lawsuit she filed against Maxwell, Roberts Giuffre said she briefly lent the photo to the FBI in 2011.
She claimed she last saw it before packing up to move to Australia, adding it may have been at her then-home in Cairns or in storage boxes at her in-laws' house in Sydney.
Mountbatten-Windsor's legal team reportedly asked for access to the original picture in 2022 so its authenticity could be verified by experts.
But the photo had been lost, according to The Daily Beast, with Roberts Giuffre's lawyers saying they didn't know where it was and had never seen the original.
Mountbatten-Windsor's lawyers argued this strengthened the former prince's claims the image was doctored.
But Epstein's newly released email, which appears to confirm Mountbatten-Windsor was in fact photographed with Roberts Giuffre, pours cold water on these claims.
It is among more than 20,000 pages of fresh Epstein correspondence published this week.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre detailed the moment the photo was taken in her posthumous memoir. Photo: ABC News: Brendan Mounter
Among the trove was a separate email in which the late disgraced financier cast doubt on Roberts Giuffre's credibility.
"he [sic] girl who accused Prince Andrew can easily be proven a liar," he wrote to his publicist Peggy Siegal.
"I think Buckingham Palace would love it. You should task someone to investigate the girl, that has caused the Queens son all this agro."
Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his prince title by his brother King Charles late last month and ordered to leave Royal Lodge.
He continues to deny the allegations made by Roberts Giuffre.
- ABC
