Prince Andrew settles sexual abuse lawsuit with Virginia Giuffre

You might remember a few weeks ago when we wrote about how maybe, just maybe, Prince Andrew might be the first man to be held accountable for his actions. Ha.

Prince Andrew has settled the lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre just six months after she filed her suit and one month after a judge denied Andrew’s motion to dismiss it. The amount he will pay is confidential and Prince Andrew did not admit guilt in the settlement.

The settlement comes weeks before Andrew was due to sit for a deposition under oath in the case brought by Giuffre, who accused Andrew of raping her when she was a teenage victim of his friend, Jeffrey Epstein.

In a statement on Tuesday, Andrew said that it was “known that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked countless young girls over many years,” and that he “regrets his association with Epstein and commends the bravery of Ms. Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others.” The statement is a pretty radical switch from last October when his lawyers said she had “initiated this baseless lawsuit against Prince Andrew to achieve another payday at his expense and at the expense of those closest to him.” Andrew did not admit to any of the accusations against him in the statement, but the statement says he “intends to make a substantial donation” to a charity “in support of victims’ rights.”

Andrew’s statement also said that he had never intended “to malign Ms. Giuffre’s character and he accepts that she has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks.”

Virginia Giuffre claimed that Andrew sexually abused her when she was under 18 at Jeffrey Epstein’s home in Manhattan and on his private island, and that Andrew, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had forced her to have sex with Andrew in Maxwell’s London home.

This lawsuit has brought a new scrutiny over the British royal family, and has seen Andrew step down from public life as a royal and relinquish various imaginary titles.

Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 when he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Last December, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking.