Prince Andrew’s Epstein Ties Back in Focus After Massive U.S. File Release

Jeffrey Epstein continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. Even seven years after his death, he is still unsettling the powerful people who once moved comfortably in his orbit.

The latest release of more than three million Epstein files by the U.S. Department of Justice names a long list of high-profile figures, including Donald Trump, Bill Gates, and many others. As Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, prepares to mark his birthday next month, the documents arrive like an unwanted early present from an old friend. A present, the Royal Family may have known was coming.

Buried in the documents are messages showing how close Andrew remained to Epstein after his conviction. They also reveal what U.S. authorities were being told behind closed doors years before the public saw a single page.

For readers new to the case, these files do not offer legal verdicts. However, in the public court of opinion, they are damning as they offer a paper trail. They show access, familiarity and warning signs that were already known long before the scandal reached breaking point.

The Buckingham Palace invitation

One email exchange from September 2010 is hard to ignore. In it, Prince Andrew invites Jeffrey Epstein to Buckingham Palace for dinner and offers what he calls plenty of privacy. The timing matters. Epstein had already been convicted. Andrew was still a senior royal, protected by state-funded security and police.

The files do not say whether the dinner ever took place. Buckingham Palace has declined to comment. The question that lingers is not complicated. Why was the invitation sent at all?

Compared with the abuse detailed elsewhere in the Epstein files, another email may seem almost trivial. Yet it is revealing in its own way. In a separate message sent weeks before The King’s Speech opened in the United States, publicist Peggy Siegal confidently predicted the film would win Best Picture and that Colin Firth would take Best Actor. The email landed three weeks before release and two months before Oscar nominations.

It may be the least serious detail in the files. It still captures something unsettling about the world these figures moved in, where outcomes appeared settled long before the rest of the public was allowed to play along.

What U.S. authorities were told in private

Some of the most disturbing material appears in internal U.S. government email chains from 2020, created during the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell. These emails record tips and allegations received by federal authorities at the time.

One message contains an allegation that Maxwell sold a girl into sexual slavery in the 1990s and names Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor as an accessory to abuse that allegedly led to her death. The email describes claims of torture and of another individual being forced to carry out the killing. The files make clear that these claims were not proven and that no charges followed.

What is beyond dispute is that these allegations reached U.S. authorities years ago. They were formally logged, circulated, and reviewed inside the system. They did not surface in public until 2026.

That context casts earlier statements in the UK in a harsher light. The Metropolitan Police said there was nothing to investigate. The newly released files now show that U.S. officials were holding an email that explicitly accused Andrew of being an accessory to murder. As these documents emerge in the early hours in London, the focus shifts away from denial and toward a harder question: who knew what, and when.

Images Circulating Online Add to Scrutiny

A series of disturbing images circulating online purport to show Prince Andrew hovering over a young woman lying on the floor at what appears to be a private indoor gathering. The woman’s face is redacted. In the background, another person’s legs are visible, kicked up behind a table, adding to the unsettling nature of the scene.

The photographs have no verified provenance. There is no confirmation of when or where they were taken, or of the circumstances surrounding them. On their own, they do not establish criminal behaviour. Even so, they continue to resurface because of the long trail of allegations connected to Andrew and his association with Jeffrey Epstein.

Their reappearance has taken on renewed significance following the release of internal U.S. government documents, including a redacted FBI summary of a cellmate interview. That email records allegations involving several high-profile figures and includes claims related to Andrew’s conduct, attributed to witness statements and second-hand accounts. As with the images, the document records allegations rather than findings, and no charges followed.

Set against that backdrop, the images have become part of a wider public reckoning. They do not prove wrongdoing. They do, however, reinforce why scrutiny has never faded, and why every new release from the Epstein files continues to draw attention back to Andrew’s past and the unanswered questions that surround it.

Virginia Giuffre’s Allegations and the Settlement That Followed

Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers, said Epstein forced her to have sex with Andrew on three occasions, including when she was 17. Andrew has denied those allegations. He later settled a civil lawsuit with Giuffre in 2022 without admitting liability.

Giuffre died by suicide in April, 2025. Her claims, and the settlement that followed, remain central to why images like these continue to provoke anger and suspicion online. On their own, the photographs prove nothing. Set against years of accusations and denials, they have become part of a wider picture that many find impossible to ignore.

The Royal Response Did Not Come Out of Nowhere

Prince Andrew stepped back from royal duties in 2019 following his disastrous interview with Emily Maitlis on BBC Newsnight. He later lost his titles and public role. The palace framed this as damage control after a disastrous interview.

The timing now looks revealing. Earlier this month, it was reported that Prince William, heir to the throne, had hired a crisis manager. At the time, the move raised eyebrows. With the release of these emails, the reason is clearer. Andrew is a long-festering problem the royal institution allowed to rot for decades, and the fallout is no longer containable by silence alone.

It strains belief that senior royals knew nothing while Andrew kept inviting Epstein into royal spaces. Blood ties do not vanish because statements say they should.

Why the Royal Family Cannot Fully Escape This

For years, Andrew lived and moved within royal property, under royal protection, while maintaining contact with a convicted sex offender. The palace has repeatedly tried to present his case as one man acting alone. The emails and the record suggest something else. Doors that should have been shut stayed open, and they stayed open for far too long.

Despite public statements about distance, the private reality appears more complicated. This month, reports of a complete rift between Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie and their father were quietly contradicted by friends who described ongoing private contact. Sympathy for Andrew and for Sarah Ferguson, driven by the pressure of the Epstein scandal, has never fully disappeared behind palace walls.

Andrew also remains more formally embedded than many assume. He is still a Counsellor of State and the legal holder of the Duke of York title. He remains in the line of succession, a status that will only change if Parliament decides otherwise. Whatever the optics, the institutional ties remain intact.

Images from Andrew’s private life continue to circulate online, including photographs showing him in close proximity to a young-looking individual. The context of those images is unverified. What is verified is how jarring they appear when set against the allegations that have followed him for years.

Andrew is the man the Royal Family protected for so long. This is the man William and Kate chose prefer as neigbous over Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex. Andrew is the same man they publicly accompanied to church, a gesture widely interpreted as unity and support. The palace may wish to draw a firm line under Andrew’s past. The record shows that the line was never as clear or as decisive as the public was led to believe.