While writing my new book, Ghislaine Maxwell: Jeffrey Epstein and America’s Most Notorious Socialite, I could not get away from that famous March 2001 photograph that has been seen around the world by many millions of people. It shows the socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who claims innocence despite now being a convicted sex trafficker of under-age girls; a then 17-year-old Virginia Roberts (now Giuffre), a victim of Maxwell and Epstein’s scheme; and Prince Andrew, who claims he wasn’t there, one arm wrapped tightly around Giuffre’s semi-naked waist.
It is an extraordinarily powerful image. Even in those rather more Mad Men times, it shocked the world when it initially surfaced, in 2011 (five years after Epstein was charged with his first crime: unlawful sex with a minor). While writing the biography I wondered time and time again, Would we really still be talking about Jeffrey Epstein, years after his death, without it?
