Six months after her death by suicide in Australia, Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl has reignited the global scandal surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s trafficking network — this time implicating an unnamed world leader and resurfacing scrutiny of disgraced royal Prince Andrew.
Driving the news
Published on Tuesday, the US edition of Nobody’s Girl contains Giuffre’s most disturbing account yet of her years in Epstein’s orbit. She wrote that she was “brutally beaten and raped” by a man she referred to as a “well-known Prime Minister.” In the UK edition, the same passage describes him instead as a “former minister.” No reason has been offered for the change.“In my years with them, they lent me out to scores of wealthy, powerful people. I was habitually used and humiliated – and in some instances, choked, beaten, and bloodied,” she wrote. “I believed that I might die a sex slave.”Describing an encounter on Epstein’s private Caribbean island, she said she was trafficked to a man who “raped me more savagely than anyone had before.” “He repeatedly choked me until I lost consciousness and took pleasure in seeing me fear for my life,” she wrote. “Horrifically, the Prime Minister laughed when he hurt me and got more aroused when I begged him to stop.”Giuffre said that afterward she “tearfully begged Epstein not to send me back to him,” only for Epstein to reply coldly: “You’ll get that sometimes.”
A transatlantic scandal deepens
The memoir’s publication threatens to further expose the network of power, money, and complicity that shielded Epstein and his associates. It also revives the scandal surrounding Prince Andrew, who Giuffre accused of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager — allegations he continues to deny.Giuffre claimed that Andrew’s team had “tried to hire online trolls” to harass her during her civil case against him in New York. “After casting doubt on my credibility for so long – Prince Andrew’s team had even gone so far as to try to hire internet trolls to hassle me – the Duke of York owed me a meaningful apology as well,” she wrote of the 2022 settlement that reportedly cost him millions.The settlement followed years of damaging revelations, including the now-infamous 2019 BBC interview in which Andrew attempted to defend his relationship with Epstein — only to destroy his reputation in the process. In that interview, he claimed he had broken off all contact with Epstein in 2010. But newly surfaced emails show that in February 2011, Andrew wrote to Epstein: “It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it. Otherwise keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon!!!!”
A copy of “Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice” by Virginia Roberts Giuffre is displayed on a shelf at a Barnes & Noble Booksellers store, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
A royal reckoning
Amid renewed outrage, Andrew last week announced that he would relinquish his royal and military titles and no longer be known as the Duke of York, though he will retain the title of “prince” as the late Queen Elizabeth II’s son. The decision was widely seen as an attempt to end years of public disgrace and protect the monarchy’s image. But Nobody’s Girl has ensured that the scandal remains far from over.
Why it matters
The Epstein saga continues to haunt Western political and royal institutions. Giuffre’s death and the shocking allegations in her memoir have reignited public anger at the way power insulated men accused of exploitation. The mention of a “Prime Minister” — even without a name — will send shockwaves through political and legal circles on both sides of the Atlantic, raising questions about who in Epstein’s circle still remains untouchable.
The big picture
Giuffre’s death in April this year was ruled a suicide by Australian authorities. She was 41.
- Nobody’s Girl chronicles her years as a trafficking victim, her legal battles, and her public campaign for justice.
- The book’s release comes as US lawmakers reopen inquiries into Epstein’s network, following the release of previously sealed court documents earlier this year.
- The
Metropolitan Police in London confirmed it is “actively looking into” reports that Prince Andrew asked a bodyguard to dig up dirt on Giuffre in 2011.
For Buckingham Palace, the publication could not have come at a worse time. While Andrew hoped his withdrawal from public life might draw a line under the scandal, Giuffre’s final words have instead redrawn it — sharper, darker, and closer to power than ever before.
