With each document-drop from the Epstein Files, I’ve wondered if we would ever see any kind of “smoking gun” when it came to Jeffrey Epstein’s communications with other British royals beyond Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. While Sarah, Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein’s communications are depraved, sickening and enlightening, by the looks of things, Epstein mostly had a siloed relationship with Andrew and Fergie. While Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were regularly invited to royal homes and royal events, it was always at Andrew’s invitation and no one else’s. No one has even confirmed if QEII or King Charles ever met Epstein or Maxwell, and there are no photos (so far) of Epstein and Maxwell with anyone other than Andrew and Fergie. Well, according to a newly-revealed email, Andrew’s advisor David Stern emailed Epstein in 2011, and Stern openly discussed what Andrew’s “mum” thought about Andrew and Epstein.
Queen Elizabeth II gave her son, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, her “full support” even after two photographs emerged of him – one with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction, and the other with his arm around Virginia Giuffre. But it seems the late Queen did consider her son’s contact with the convicted paedophile to be “unwise”.
The two photographs had been published in February 2011. The first showed Andrew with Epstein in New York’s Central Park, and the second was of Andrew in London with a young Giuffre, who later went on to accuse the former prince of having sex with her. A day after the second photograph was published, Andrew emailed Epstein saying, “we are in this together”.
ITV News has uncovered an email in the latest batch of US government documents from a close adviser to the then-Prince Andrew.
Referring to Andrew as “PA”, David Stern wrote to Epstein: “he has full support of his mum, only dealing with you was ‘unwise.’” By using quote marks in his email, it suggests Stern is quoting the view of Andrew’s mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
The correspondence is from March 9, 2011, which is three months after Andrew claimed, in that disastrous Newsnight interview, that he flew to New York and stayed with Epstein to tell him in person that they had to end their friendship. He referred to the trip as the “honourable” thing to do.
At the time of the email exchange, Andrew was under pressure to resign from his official business ambassador role, as a newspaper had recently printed the photograph of Andrew and Epstein walking in New York’s Central Park together. Stern appears to be updating Epstein on the mood in the palace following the publications. “Theme seems to be now: PA under scrutiny for dealing with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan (but government approved!),” he writes.
Until the discovery of this email, we never knew what Queen Elizabeth thought about her son’s actions. Whilst the late Queen did authorise Andrew to step down as a working member of the Royal Family in 2019, shortly after his Newsnight interview, she allowed him to remain the Duke of York and to keep his prince title. It is widely understood that Queen Elizabeth privately funded Andrew’s payment to his accuser, the late Virginia Giuffre, reported to be around £12 million. Even when his reputation was in tatters, the late Queen significantly chose Andrew to walk with her when she attended a remembrance service at Westminster Abbey for her husband, Prince Philip, in 2022. She didn’t say anything at the time, but it was a clear sign of support from mother to son.
While “Andrew’s lackey having secondhand knowledge about QEII’s views” isn’t a smoking gun, I do believe that this is an accurate representation of how she felt. Sure, she thought it was “unwise” for her son to gallivant around with a convicted human trafficker. But she also thought that the situation could be managed and that Andrew could be and should be protected and even coddled. We knew all of this already! Even in her last months on earth, QEII was still protecting her garbage p3do son. She was handing him millions of dollars to settle Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit. What’s also sort of interesting (to me) is that Epstein genuinely showed an interest, for a time, in helping Andrew “manage” the fallout from… what Andrew and Epstein did together, the horrible secrets they shared, their symbiotic perversions.
Going back to QEII… something I think about way too much is the fact that she and Andrew were all smiles as they were chauffeured to church in Scotland just one day after Epstein’s mysterious death in 2019. See the photo below.
Photos courtesy of Instar, Avalon Red, Getty Images.
