For years, it was dismissed by the man formerly known as Prince Andrew as a “fake,” a “photocopy of a photocopy,” and a digital fabrication. But on Wednesday, the infamous 2001 photograph of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor with his arm around a 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre was effectively authenticated by the very person standing in the background.
In a staggering revelation from the latest three-million-page “Epstein Files” dump by the U.S. Department of Justice, a 2015 email exchange between Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein appears to confirm the photograph is genuine. The correspondence, which predates the most intense legal scrutiny of the image, features Maxwell explicitly describing the moment the photo was taken at her London home.
“In 2001 I was in London when [redacted] met a number of friends of mine including Prince Andrew,” Maxwell wrote in the email, dated January 2015. “A photograph was taken as I imagine she wanted to show it to friends and family.”
The ‘Smoking Gun’ Email
The email is the most definitive evidence to date to puncture Andrew’s 2019 “Newsnight” defense, in which he claimed he had “no recollection” of the photo and suggested it might have been doctored.
While the names in the DOJ-released version of the email are partially redacted, the context leaves little room for interpretation. Maxwell’s description of the subject being “engaged in a campaign of media harassment with the objective of selling her memoirs” and claiming she was a “sex slave” perfectly matches the public profile and posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre.
Even more damning is Epstein’s brief response to Maxwell, in which he suggests “amendments” to her narrative to protect their high-profile associate. Epstein advised that her statement should claim the meeting was “neither on her first visit or anytime thereafter,” a tactical attempt to minimize the frequency of the encounters.
A Decades-Long Deception
The authentication of the photo marks the symbolic collapse of the former royal’s credibility. Since the image first surfaced in The Mail on Sunday in 2011, Andrew and his legal team have waged a multi-front war on its validity:
- 2011: Andrew allegedly asked his Met Police bodyguard to dig up dirt on Giuffre just hours before the photo was published.
- 2019: Andrew told the BBC the photo couldn’t be real because he was in his “travelling clothes” and the lighting was “unusual.”
- 2023: Maxwell, speaking from a Florida prison, doubled down on the claim, calling the image a “fake” and insisting no original ever existed.
The 2015 email, however, shows that behind the scenes and years before the settlement, Maxwell was speaking of the photo as a matter of fact.
Political and Legal Aftershocks
The revelation comes as Prime Minister Keir Starmer has publicly increased pressure on Andrew to testify before the U.S. Congress. With the “doctored photo” defense now shredded by his own associates’ private communications, Andrew’s refusal to speak under oath has become politically untenable.
The Fallout for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor:
- Congressional Summons: Lawmakers in Washington are now citing the email as proof that Andrew’s previous public statements were “materially misleading.”
- Palace Distance: King Charles III, who stripped his brother of his remaining titles in late 2025, has reportedly told advisors that there is “no path back” for Andrew following the DOJ disclosures.
- New Civil Threats: Lawyers for other Epstein victims are using the authenticated photo as a “foundational fact” to argue that Andrew was a frequent and knowing participant in Epstein’s London-based operations.
As the sun sets over a cold and quiet Royal Lodge, the image that Andrew once called a “fabrication” has become his permanent legacy. In the cold light of the Justice Department’s files, the flash from Jeffrey Epstein’s camera in 2001 has finally, decades later, exposed the truth.