Tonight, televisions will show the perfectly state-managed scene of Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, sitting down with BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis conducting an interview recorded at Buckingham Palace this past Thursday. In it, the Duke admits that he “let the side down” by maintaining a friendship with jet-setting billionaire and convicted serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In a grand mea culpa, Andrew concedes that his friendship was not “becoming of a member of the Royal Family.” But far from repairing the PR damage done to Britain’s Royal Family, his move may have been a ‘catastrophic’ own-goal by his Palace handlers.
When asked why he stayed at the Epstein mansion after knowing he was already branded a convicted offender, the Prince answered simply, “It was a convenient place to stay.”
This, and other gaffs has led top media lawyer, Mark Stephens, who previously represented Princess Diana’s lover James Hewitt, to issue harsh skepticism as to whether this was a wise move to push Andrew back into the spotlight. He told the Guardian:
“This strategy only works if you’ve got a complete and full answer to every possible question, and here there are too many loose ends.”
“If he’d kept his silence he’d have been able to remain outside of the case, as he’s a witness and is entitled to diplomatic immunity. He was a private individual and now he’s waived that privacy.”
Entertainment PR agent Mark Borkowski, added:
“Andrew has never enjoyed the company of journalists, and always kept the press firmly at arm’s length. Doing something so public is a high-risk strategy, and likely just to draw more attention to the issue without changing any minds.”
Watch an edited segment of Prince Andrew’s BBC interview here:
One thing is certain: the British public were not clamouring for Andrew to do this media spot, and quite possibly would’ve forgotten about it as a hotly-contested UK General Election and Brexit begin to overtake all concerns heading into the Christmas season.
So why do the Palace do it?
Virginia Roberts-Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers, has publicly claimed that she was ‘forced to have sex’ with Prince Andrew on three occasions between 2001 and 2002, in London, New York and on Epstein’s private island Little St James, located in Caribbean.
Earlier this year, Epstein is said to have committed suicide by hanging in his Manhattan federal jail cell where he was on remand pending trial on charges of sex trafficking of minors and sex trafficking conspiracy.
Many believe that his untimely death was not a suicide and was in fact a murder designed to prevent his case coming to trial, and thus protecting the reputations of the numerous elites connected to the sex criminal.
READ MORE EPSTEIN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Epstein Files
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