The Duchess of York has come under intense criticism over the email she sent to Epstein in 2011 describing him as a "supreme friend". Photo / Getty Images
The Duchess of York has come under intense criticism over the email she sent to Epstein in 2011 describing him as a "supreme friend". Photo / Getty Images
The Duchess of York sent a fawning email to Jeffrey Epstein because he vowed to “destroy her” in a “Hannibal Lecter-style” phone call.
The Duchess’ spokesman told the Daily Telegraph that Epstein was incensed by her description of him as a paedophile and made a “chilling” phone call in whichhe threatened to take legal action.
It came after the duchess, 65, said in an interview published in March 2011 that she had made a “terrible, terrible error of judgment” in accepting £15,000 ($35,000) from Epstein, a convicted sex offender, to pay off her debts, adding: “I abhor paedophilia.”
This week, the Duchess has come under intense criticism after it emerged she had sent Epstein an email in 2011 in which she described him as a “steadfast, generous and supreme friend”.
She also “humbly apologised” for criticising him in public and told him she was aware “you feel hellaciously let down by me”.
After the email was revealed, the Duchess was dropped as a patron by several charities.
Describing the phone call that prompted the email, James Henderson, her spokesman and adviser, said: “People don’t understand how terrible Epstein was. I can remember everything about that call.
Epstein was incensed by the Duchess' description of him as a paedophile. Photo / Getty Images
“It was a chilling call and I’m surprised anybody was ever friends with him, given the way he talked to me.
“He said he would destroy the York family and he was quite clear on that. He said he would destroy me. He wasn’t shouting. He had a Hannibal Lecter-type voice. It was very cold and calm and really menacing and nasty.”
Henderson was sufficiently rattled that he saved Epstein’s phone number to make sure that if he ever called him again, he would know not to pick it up. It was the only conversation or exchange he had ever had with him.
He recalled it being a day in spring when Epstein called him after the Duchess of York’s interview.
Henderson said it was understandable that the Duchess had subsequently fired off the email, expressing her regret at offending Epstein, given the menace of his threat to ruin her life and that of her family. The Duchess has two daughters with the Duke of York, Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice, both of them now married and with children.
However, the resurfaced email has brought the Duchess’ decades of philanthropic work to an abrupt end.
On Monday (local time), she was dropped by organisations she has represented and championed for years, including the British Heart Foundation, The Children’s Literacy Charity and the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation.
Julia’s House, a children’s hospice in Dorset and Wiltshire, was the first to sever its association with her, ending six years of the duchess’ patronage.
The charity said it would be “inappropriate for her to continue as patron” in the light of her “correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein”.
Big loss for the duchess
The Teenage Cancer Trust, for which she has been a patron since it opened its first unit at the Middlesex Hospital in London in 1990, cut ties with the duchess within hours of saying it was “reviewing” her status.
The patronage is a big loss for the Duchess, who took both her daughters to Teenage Cancer Trust units on their 18th birthdays.
Henderson added: “He [Epstein] was very, very clear. He said ‘I will destroy the family’. The pressure she was put under to protect her family must have been huge. I am sure there were legal actions.
“And this was long before the Duke’s life had been ruined by his association with Epstein. It was 14 years ago and everyone will do what they have to do to protect their family.”
He added: “Her [the Duchess’] family and children will always come first for her. That call was chilling. It was about two minutes long. But it was a two-minute threat in a Hannibal Lecter-type voice. I didn’t have anything to say to him.”
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