A single photograph from March 10, 2001—Prince Andrew’s arm draped around the waist of a wide-eyed 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre, Ghislaine Maxwell smirking beside them—ignited the fire that brought down a royal.
Taken inside Maxwell’s Belgravia townhouse in London by Jeffrey Epstein himself, the image captured what Giuffre described in her memoir Nobody’s Girl (October 21, 2025) as the prelude to her first alleged sexual assault by Andrew. “I remember the flash,” she wrote. “I asked for the photo thinking my mom would want proof I met a prince. Instead, it became proof they didn’t care how young I was.”
The photo, developed at a Florida Walgreens on March 13, 2001, and authenticated by a 2011 Epstein email (“Yes she had her picture taken with Andrew”), contradicted Andrew’s 2019 BBC Newsnight denials—“no recollection” of meeting Giuffre, claims it might be doctored. Giuffre’s unflinching testimony—three assaults in London, New York, and on Little Saint James—fueled her 2022 £12 million settlement (no liability admitted) and 2025 title revocation.
Giuffre, who died by suicide April 25, 2025, at 41, ensured the image’s legacy: a symbol of royal entitlement shattered by a survivor’s truth. As she wrote: “They thought one photo wouldn’t matter. It mattered to me.” The snapshot—once a private memento—now defines Andrew’s fall, a spark that burned through palaces.
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