The email looks almost throwaway, the sort of upbeat reassurance you might fire off to an old friend in a tight spot. 'Don't worry about me! It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it!'
On its own, it might pass as damage control. Placed alongside three million pages of material on Jeffrey Epstein released by the US Justice Department, it begins to look like something else entirely: a glimpse into the strange, mutually useful bond between a disgraced financier and a man who was, at the time, still a working member of the British royal family.
The author of that line was Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The recipient: Epstein, already notorious, already a convicted sex offender. And according to critics poring over the files, the emails show Epstein functioning not merely as a social contact, but as the Duke's informal 'pimp and fixer'—a man who shuttled him around, opened doors, and helped shoulder reputational crises that should never have been his to carry.
Andrew has always insisted that his ties to Epstein were limited and, crucially, that he cut them cleanly. In his 2019 BBC Newsnight interview, he claimed that a notorious December 2010 trip to Epstein's Manhattan townhouse was an awkward farewell visit, staged so he could tell the convicted paedophile they could no longer be seen together.
'I went there with the sole purpose of saying to him that, because he had been convicted, it was inappropriate for us to be seen together,' he said. 'I never had any contact with him from that day forward.'
The newly released correspondence suggests a rather different story. The email about being 'in this together' was sent after a now-famous photograph emerged in 2011 of Andrew with Virginia Giuffre, who alleges she was trafficked by Epstein and forced into sex with the prince when she was 17. Andrew has denied the claims; he later settled Giuffre'scivil lawsuit in 2022without admitting liability.
In an email from the Epstein files Ghislaine Maxwell admits this photo of Andrew with his arm around Virginia Giuffre's waist is real.My god. The royal family protected Andrew Mountbatten Windsor a LIARVirginia Giuffre. SPOKE THE TRUTH.#AbolishTheMonarchypic.twitter.com/nYKZOZL6vr
What is striking in the emails, according to sources familiar with the cache, is not simply that contact continued, but the way Epstein appears to operate—discreetly overseeing movement, smoothing arrangements, making things happen.
'The tone makes clear that Epstein was not a peripheral figure,' one source said. 'He was stepping in to manage problems, offer strategic advice and provide practical support. That is why some observers are branding him Andrew's fixer – and worse, even his pimp.'
The phrase is incendiary, and yet the details that feed it are oddly mundane. Epstein is found booking hotels for Andrew's police protection officers in New York, arranging cars, co-ordinating diaries. In one exchange ahead of that 2010 visit, Andrew even asks him what to pack: 'What sort of clothes will I need to bring? ie will I need to bring something for the heat in case we go south, or will it all be in NY, so therefore COLD.'
Source: International Business Times UK
