Virginia Giuffre, most prominent alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew, found dead at 41
Virginia Giuffre, the most prominent victim of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, died by suicide on Friday. She was 41 years old.
The American-born mother-of-three was found dead at her farm in Neergabby, Australia, where she had been living for the past several years, NBC News reported.
Her tragic ending came after a life of tireless advocacy on behalf of herself and other alleged victims of Epstein's sex crimes.
Giuffre was born in California in 1983 and was shattered as a grade-schooler when she was sexually abused by a man her family knew
She spent time as a runaway, was shuffled through foster homes and lived on the streets at just 14. She was first forced into sex trafficking by Miami sex trafficker Ron Eppinger.
Eventually, Giuffre got free of Eppinger reunited with her father Sky, according to The Miami Herald.
At 16 in mid-2000, her father was working in maintenance at Mar-a-Lago resort, the private club owned by Donald Trump, and got her a job as a locker room attendant.
That's when she said she met Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of Robert Maxwell, a former member of parliament and publisher of several British newspapers.
Virginia Giuffre , one of the public faces and advocates for the victims of historical pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, died by suicide on Friday. She was 41 years old
An undated handout photo taken at an undisclosed location and released on December 2, 2021 by the United States District Couty for the Southern District of New York shows Virginia Giuffre
Giuffre said that Maxwell offered her the opportunity to work as a massage therapist for Epstein.
'They seemed like nice people so I trusted them, and I told them I'd had a really hard time in my life up until then—I'd been a runaway, I'd been sexually abused, physically abused,' she told the BBC.
'That was the worst thing I could have told them because now they knew how vulnerable I was.'
Epstein and Maxwell groomed her to sexually service both of them as well as other clients, she said in an interview and a sworn court affidavit.
She claimed in 2011 that she was sex trafficked to Prince Andrew on three occasions by Epstein and Maxwell, the first time when she was 17.
The Duke of York has consistently and vehemently denied her claims, as has convicted sex offender Maxwell, who Giuffre claims acted on Epstein's behalf. Epstein died in a New York prison in 2019.
'It started with one and it trickled into two and so on and before you know it, I'm being lent out to politicians and academics and royalty,' she said.
She named many of these prominent men in a civil suit, the records from which were unsealed in 2019.
Giuffre has claimed she was sexually abused by Prince Andrew at the behest of Epstein's associate, jailed British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, when she was just 17.
Giuffre, center, holds a news conference outside a Manhattan court in New York in 2019
They included former governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson, hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin, modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel and attorney Alan Dershowitz.
Dershowitz, Richardson and Dubin have all publicly and vehemently denied the allegation. Brunel, who faced decades of allegations of sexual abuse, died from an apparent suicide in 2022.
She was also told to recruit even more girls and at one point, started to travel with Epstein and Maxwell, as is documented on the infamous flight logs of Epstein's so-called 'Lolita Express.'
She finally broke free of Epstein and Maxwell in 2002 when Giuffre was on a massage training course in Thailand, paid for by Epstein, with the expectation she would bring back a specific girl for him.
That's where she met Australian Robert Giuffre and married him shortly thereafter.
Giuffre came forward publicly after an initial investigation in 2005 ended in an 18-month Florida jail term for Epstein, who made a secret deal to avoid federal prosecution by pleading guilty instead to relatively minor state-level charges of soliciting prostitution. He was released in 2009.
She attempted to tell her story in subsequent lawsuits against her alleged abusers.
The men, including Epstein and Prince Andrew, denied the allegations and assailed Giuffre's credibility. She acknowledged changing some key details of her account, including the age at which she first met Epstein.
She finally broke free of Epstein and Maxwell in 2002 when Giuffre was on a massage training course in Thailand, paid for by Epstein, with the expectation she would bring back a specific girl for him. That's where she met Australian Robert Giuffre (pictured left) and married him shortly thereafter
But many parts of her story were supported by documents, witness testimony and photos - including one of her and Andrew, with his his arm around her bare midriff, in Maxwell´s London townhouse.
'Ghislaine said, "I want you to do for him what you do for Epstein,"' Giuffre told NBC News' Dateline in September 2019.
Andrew categorically rejected Giuffre´s allegations and said he didn't recall having met her.
His denials blew up in his face during a November 2019 BBC interview.
Viewers saw a prince who issued incredulous rebuttals - such as disputing Giuffre's recollection of sweaty dancing by saying he was medically incapable of perspiring - and showed no empathy for the women who said Epstein abused them.
Within days of the disastrous interview, Andrew stepped down from his royal duties.
He settled with Giuffre in 2022 for an undisclosed sum, agreeing to make a 'substantial donation' to her survivors' organization.
A statement filed in court said that the prince acknowledged Epstein was a sex trafficker and Giuffre 'an established victim of abuse.'
At 16 in mid-2000, her father was working in maintenance at Mar-a-Lago resort, the private club owned by Donald Trump. Her father got her a job as a locker room attendant. That's when she said she met Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's madam and sometime girlfriend
Virginia Roberts Giuffre speaks during an interview on the BBC in 2019
Virginia Giuffre, with a photo of herself as a teen, when she alleged she was abused by Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew, among others. The men and Maxwell have denied any wrongdoing
She also filed, and in at least some cases settled, lawsuits against Epstein and others connected to him.
In one case, she dropped her claims against a prominent U.S. attorney, saying she might have erred in identifying him as one of the men to whom Epstein supplied her.
Epstein's suicide put an end to his accusers' hopes of holding him criminally accountable.
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She said said she wasn´t to blame for Epstein's abuse.
Prosecutors elected not to include Giuffre's allegations in the Maxwell case, but Giuffre later told the court that the British socialite had 'opened the door to hell.'
Giuffre founded an advocacy charity, SOAR, in 2015 and after settling with Prince Andrew out of court in 2023, for an undisclosed amount rumored to be in the millions, lived a fairly quiet life with her husband Robert and their three children.
However, in recent weeks, she had made troubling posts on social media - including a spate of hospital admissions, a quad bike accident.
She'd described it as near fatal in posts, including a March 30 missive saying she had 'four days to live.'
In recent weeks, she had made troubling posts on social media - including a spate of hospital admissions, a quad bike accident and her claims she had 'four days to live'
Giuffre's (pictured centre) brother Danny Wilson (pictured left) paid tribute to her on social media by displaying a photo of him and his sister.
'I've gone into kidney renal failure, they've given me four days to live, transferring me to a specialist hospital in urology,' she wrote.
Giuffre was discharged from a hospital a week after she made the post.
She was listed to face Joondalup Magistrates Court on April 9 on a domestic violence charge but was not required to appear in person and stayed away.
The following day she was spotted by Daily Mail Australia photographer where she flipped her middle finger as her brother Danny Wilson drove off in the $150,000 Chevrolet Silverado they were traveling in.
According to her father Sky Roberts, his daughter was going through a 'messy' divorce and no longer lives with Robert, her husband of 22 years.
Having recently separated, they no longer live together at their lavish $1.9million mansion in a Perth beachside suburb.
Two days before the car crash, on March 22, Giuffre posted a sun-drenched picture of her children on a beach, accompanied by an apparent desperate plea to see them.
'My beautiful babies have no clue how much I love them and they're being poisoned with lies,' she posted.
'I miss them so very much. I have been through hell and back in my 41 years but this is incredibly hurting me worse than anything else.
'Hurt me, abuse me but don't take my babies. My heart is shattered and every day that passes my sadness only deepens.'
It was also revealed that Giuffre had been listed to face court ten days before the crash over the alleged breach of a family violence restraining order.
On Friday, her family announced that she had died by suicide at the age of 41.
'It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia,' her family said in a statement.
'She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking.'
'Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors,' the statement said. 'In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight.'
Sigrid McCawley, an attorney for Giuffre, said in a statement Friday, 'Her courage pushed me to fight harder, and her strength was awe-inspiring. The world has lost an amazing human being today. Rest in peace, my sweet angel.'
Giuffre's brother Danny Wilson paid tribute to his sister on Facebook with a sweet photo of the pair and another man.
She is seen smiling at the camera with her arm around her brother.
Wilson also changed his cover photo on Facebook to a photo of Perth at sunset in an apparent tribute to his sister's passing.
