Ghislaine Maxwell describes Sarah, Duchess of York as a "frenemy". Photo / Getty Images
The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, tried to “put the moves” on Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell has claimed.
Maxwell, a socialite who was convicted in 2021 of helping lure teenage girls to be abused by Epstein, was interviewed over the course of two days last month by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche at a courthouse in Florida.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has now released the transcript of that July interview in which Maxwell denied she was the one who introduced the Duke of York to Epstein and said the Duchess of York, who was the Duke’s wife at the time, encouraged the friendship.
Maxwell said she never would have thought to introduce Prince Andrew and Epstein because they were like “two chalk and cheeses”. She claimed that Prince Andrew’s now ex-wife tried to “put the moves” on Epstein.
“I thought that Sarah was trying to put the moves on Jeffrey, if I’m being honest, and I thought the whole thing was annoying and I was pissed off.”
“I think Sarah is the one that pushed that. And they met and hung out, I want to say two or three times, that had nothing to do with me,” she said.
“I wasn’t communicating with Andrew, I wasn’t in touch with him. And I know this because I was annoyed and I felt left out, and I felt disrespected and I was like, ‘This is weird’. I couldn’t even imagine Epstein and Andrew together.”
Maxwell said she did not believe the Duchess of York “liked me very much”, describing her as a “frenemy”.
She said she believed the Duchess “liked Mr Epstein”.
When asked why she thought so, Maxwell responded: “My female intuition”.
During his Newsnight interview in 2019, Prince Andrew said the British socialite was the one who acquainted him with Epstein.
“First of all, let’s just state, I did not introduce him to Prince Andrew. I did not introduce him to Prince Andrew or to Sarah Ferguson. That is a flat untruth. I’ll start with that,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell said Prince Andrew met Epstein at a house rented by Lynn Forester de Rothschild.
Maxwell added: “She [de Rothschild] had a house or she rented a house in the Vineyard. I think it was in the Vineyard or Nantucket, I can’t remember now which one it was. It was one of those. It was either in Nantucket or the Vineyard, and invited Epstein to go, and I believe that’s when he met Prince Andrew.”
During his disastrous interview with Emily Maitlis, which led to him effectively being sacked from royal duties, the Prince said he was introduced to Epstein “through his girlfriend back in 1999 who ... and I’d known her since she was at university in the UK”.
Pressed by Blanche on whether it was Prince Andrew himself who suggested he met Epstein through Maxwell, she said: “I think that’s true.”
Maxwell’s lawyer then interjected: “It’s true that Andrew said that.”
Maxwell said she did not think Epstein and the Prince would become friends so she did not introduce them.
“I mean, for real, there’s nothing there to connect them.”
Maxwell said Epstein did not operate a “client list” or blackmail programme.
She confirmed meeting Trump around 1990, at a time when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News.
“I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much,” Maxwell said, according to the transcript.
Asked if she ever saw Trump receive a massage, she responded: “Never.”
“I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”
Maxwell was also asked whether she believed the official account of Epstein’s death.
“I do not believe he died by suicide, no,” she said.
Maxwell also said her father was fond of Ivana Trump, Donald Trump’s then-wife, “because she was also from Czechoslovakia, where my dad was from”.
Epstein’s death and his close association with politicians, billionaires and celebrities have spawned claims that he had been murdered to protect a supposed “client list”.
Several right-wing influencers who propagated the claims took senior positions in the Trump administration, including Kash Patel, who became director of the FBI.
So when the Department of Justice issued a memo last month confirming the suicide of Epstein and revealing there was no evidence for any further prosecutions, the result was an outcry among Trump’s own supporters.
The release of the transcripts is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to kill off the controversy.
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