Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the American woman who alleged she was one of Jeffrey Epstein’s “sex slaves” and sued Prince Andrew for alleged sexual assault, faces growing scrutiny over her claims that she is days away from dying after suffering catastrophic injuries in a car crash in Australia.
Amid the issues that have come up in response to Giuffre’s alarming near-death claim on Instagram last weekend: She has been accused of breaching a family violence restraining order and is due to face a court hearing in a suburb of Perth in Western Australia next week, People reported.
Giuffre’s first court appearance following the alleged breach was on March 14, and she entered no plea, People reported. About two weeks later, she shared her alarming health news on Instagram. She published a photo of herself in a hospital bed, covered in bruises, and said she had gone into kidney renal failure and had four days to live.
The 41-year-old Sacramento native, who moved to Australia in the early 2000s, said she hoped to live long enough to see her three teenage children, from whom she is reportedly estranged.
“I’m ready to go, just not until I see my babies one last time,” Giuffre said.
But since sharing that post, Giuffre’s family has issued a statement, saying she didn’t mean to make her Instagram post public; she only wanted to share the news on a private social media account, according to People.
Meanwhile, police have offered an account of the accident that appears to conflict with Giuffre’s dire account. She said she suffered potentially fatal injuries when a car she was riding in was struck by a bus.
Police in Western Australia have confirmed there was a crash involving a bus and a car on March 24 in Neergabby, a farming area north of Perth, People magazine and Australian news outlets reported.
But a police spokesperson told People and other outlets that the accident was “minor” and there were “no reported injuries” as a result of the crash, which occurred at 3 p.m. The spokesperson also said no one was taken to the hospital. Police also wouldn’t confirm the names of the people involved in the accident, but said the driver of the car was a 71-year-old woman and a 41-year-old woman was in the passenger seat.
In their statement to the media, Giuffre’s family said police were called to her accident involving a school bus but “no one was available to come to the scene.” Police also asked if anyone was injured and suggested that if there were they “should make their way to the hospital,” the statement said.
Giuffre’s family went on to say that the bus driver had a bus full of “distraught children” and left the scene before later filing a police report. Giuffre was able to return home, but she was bruised and her condition “worsened,” leading her to be admitted to the hospital. The family said her condition currently is “serious” — not “critical” or “grave,” the terms used in the United States to refer to someone who is intensive care of dying.
As for the domestic violence restraining order, People magazine offered no other details. The Daily Beast earlier reported that Giuffre has been estranged from her children since separating from her husband, Robert Giuffre, last year. Earlier this month, Giuffre suggested that her children had been taken away from her amid the marital breakup.
“My beautiful babies have no clue how much I love them and they’re being poisoned with lies,” she wrote on Instagram. “I miss them so very much. I have been through hell & 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.”
Giuffre moved to a beachfront property in Western Australia after receiving a reported $14 million settlement from Prince Andrew in 2022.
Her lawsuit against Andrew effectively destroyed his career as a working member of the royal family. His settlement with Giuffre led to the late Queen Elizabeth II removing her second son from the ranks of the working royal family and stripping him of his HRH title and military honors.
Giuffre had filed a lawsuit against Andrew in New York City, alleging that she met the prince through Epstein and his girlfriend and alleged madame, Ghislaine Maxwell. As one of the notorious financier’s “sex slaves,” Giuffre alleged that she was forced to have sex with Andrew in London in March 2001, when she was 17, and then two more times at the his Manhattan mansion and on his private island in the Caribbean.
Andrew has always said he doesn’t remember meeting Giuffre, despite a widely circulated photograph, showing him grinning with his arm around Giuffre’s waist in Maxwell’s London townhouse.
Following Epstein’s reported death by suicide in August 2019, Andrew faced growing scrutiny over his longtime friendship with the billionaire financier and convicted pedophile.
Maxwell, the socialite daughter of the British media mogul Robert Maxwell, subsequently was tried and convicted of child sex trafficking charges in relation to her association with Epstein. She was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
In February 2022, Andrew agreed to an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre by paying an undisclosed sum of money.
Two years after Giuffre’s alleged encounter with Andrew, she said she traveled to Thailand to study massage and, at Maxwell’s request, recruit another girl for Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. There, she met Robert Giuffre, an Australian martial arts trainer, married him, cut ties with Epstein and Maxwell, and settled in Australia to raise a family, according to the BBC.