Ghislaine Maxwell defends ‘dear’ friends Prince Andrew, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton in prison interview

In her first interview since her conviction for trafficking underaged girls with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell lamented the way that her famous friends — Prince Andrew and former Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton — have been excoriated for once being close to her.

Maxwell reflected on her friendships with these men in an exclusive interview with The Sun, published over the  weekend. Speaking from a federal prison, where she is serving 20 years, Maxwell particularly focused on Andrew, saying she “feels so bad” for him.

The former British socialite, 60, “appeared shaken” when The Sun’s reporter Daphne Barak told her that Andrew’s lawyers claimed they were never close. The Oxford-educated daughter of British press baron Robert Maxwell, told the U.K. tabloid, “I accept that this friendship could not survive my conviction.” She added, “He is paying such a price for the association. I consider him a dear friend. I care about him.”

Maxwell said she had followed reports about Andrew’s downfall. Earlier this year, the son of the late Queen Elizabeth II paid a reported $14 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged he had sex with Virginia Giuffre, who claims she was one of Epstein’s victims.

Ghislaine Maxwell calls Prince Andrew a ‘dear friend’ – just when the Duke hoped the dust had settled on his links with paedophile Epstein https://t.co/Hu4kk0rJnF

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) October 15, 2022

It’s not a good time for the disgraced Duke of York to receive this expression of concern from someone as scandalous as Maxwell, as friends told the Daily Mail. “Receiving words of support from a convicted sex trafficker isn’t very helpful,” a friend said.

It’s been reported that Andrew hopes he can rescue his public image and return to royal duties, but the U.K public largely believes he has himself to blame for his downfall. Andrew’s association with Epstein and Maxwell prompted the queen — reportedly with encouragement from his brother, the new King Charles III — to ask him to relinquish his military titles and patronages and to cease to represent the royal family at public events.

Maxwell told The Sun, as part of an upcoming CBS-Paramount+ special, that many have paid “a very heavy price” for knowing her, but said she was grateful to former President Trump for showing her loyalty even after Epstein was arrested a second time in 2019 on sex trafficking charges.

Extraordinary interview from US jail cell with Ghislaine Maxwell in @TheSun on Sunday. The convicted sex-trafficker calls Prince Andrew her “dear friend”, plus much more. Full story:https://t.co/79c3oCqVr1

— Matt Wilkinson (@MattSunRoyal) October 15, 2022

Epstein was first convicted and sentenced in Florida in 2008 on state prostitution charges. He was arrested again in July 2019. He died by suicide in a New York prison a month later. Maxwell was arrested in July 2020.

“We knew each other and mingled in the same circles, in New York, Palm Beach,” Maxwell said about Trump. Following Maxwell’s arrest in New Hampshire, the then-president said to reporters at the White House, “I just wish her well, frankly.”

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Donald and Melania Trump, Prince Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein (in the background) and Ghislaine Maxwell are pictured together at Trump’s resort at Mar-A-Lago in February 2000 pic.twitter.com/sB0e5QFzTo

— PoliticsVideoChannel (@politvidchannel) February 19, 2022

At the time, Trump also recounted to reporters how he met Maxwell and Epstein “numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach.” The former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort is in the Florida town where Epstein also had a home. “But I wish her well, whatever it is,” Trump said.

Maxwell told The Sun she was “very grateful” that Trump wished her well.

“He got bad media for it, but he dared, while others didn’t,” Maxwell said. “I was honored he remembered me. Well, he is known to say what he thinks. It gave me a big boost.”

When Maxwell spoke to The Sun, she probably wasn’t aware that Trump had expressed concern about what she might tell authorities about their association, according to a new book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman. After Maxwell was arrested, Trump appeared to be particularly worried about a story in Page Six, the gossip section of the New York Post, Haberman said in her book, as reported by The Guardian.

The Page Six story quoted Steve Hoffenberg, an Epstein associate, who said: “Ghislaine thought she was untouchable — that she’d be protected by the intelligence communities she and Jeffrey helped with information: the Israeli intelligence services, and Les Wexner, who has given millions to Israel; by Prince Andrew, President Clinton and even by President Trump, who was well-known to be an acquaintance of her and Epstein’s.”

According to Haberman, Trump asked campaign advisers” “You see that article in the (New York) Post today that mentioned me?” Trump also asked: “She say anything about me?’”

Links between Epstein, Maxwell, Andrew, Trump and Clinton have long stoked press and social media speculation, and in ways that have not been favorable to any of them, as Maxwell noted in her interview with The Sun. As the controversy surrounding Epstein’s arrest and suicide grew, Maxwell often was referred to as the late financier’s “madam,” and she was accused of procuring underage girls for him and their powerful friends to have sex with.

With regard to Clinton, Maxwell told The Sun that she valued her friendship with the 42nd president. Politico reported in 2019 that Maxwell grew close to the Clinton family after Bill Clinton left office in 2001. Clinton traveled on Epstein’s private plane, dubbed the “Lolita Express,” multiple times through 2003 to destinations around the world, Gawker and Fox News reported.

“It was a special friendship, which continued over the years,” Maxwell said. “We had lots in common. I feel bad that he is another victim, only because of his association with Jeffrey. I understand he, like others, can no longer consider me as a friend.”

Maxwell also became friendly with Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, Politico reported. Even after Epstein’s conviction in Florida in 2008, the Clinton family maintained ties with Maxwell, who vacationed with Chelsea Clinton on a yacht in 2009 and attended Chelsea’s wedding to Marc Mezvinsky in 2010, Politico reported. A photo of Maxwell at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding circulated online. Like her father, Chelsea Clinton issued a statement after Epstein’s arrest, denying that she and Maxwell had ever been close, Politico said.

Here’s Ghislaine Maxwell, by many accounts Jeffrey Epstein’s “pimp” and “groomer of girls” at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. pic.twitter.com/leBUwqoWnT

— Adam McKay (@GhostPanther) July 7, 2019

To The Sun, Maxwell complained that her various friends had been “cancelled.”

Certainly, Andrew has paid a price for his friendship with Maxwell, which reportedly dates back to when she was at Oxford in the early 1980s, Insider reported. Andrew and Maxwell became regular fixtures in the New York and London social scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the duke traveled with Maxwell to Epstein’s homes in Palm Beach, New York and the Caribbean, Insider reported. According to a 2019 Daily Beast report, Andrew also relied on Maxwell to introduce him to young women in London and to even bring them to meet him at Buckingham Palace.

In her interview, Maxwell refused to go into detail about her friendships with Andrew, Clinton and Trump, pending the appeal of her case. Maxwell also refused to deny reports that she and Andrew once were a couple. She only said, “I have read and seen and heard and had reported to me so many monstrous inaccuracies that I can’t even start to pick apart all of them.

Maxwell defended Andrew over one of the most damaging pieces of evidence against him: The infamous photo of him with his arm around his accuser, Giuffre, who said she was 17 at the time. Maxwell told The Sun that she suspected the photo is “a forgery.”

The photo, which also showed a smiling Maxwell, was said to be taken in 2001 at Maxwell’s London townhouse. Giuffre said she and Andrew posed for the photo before they first had sex, but Andrew said in his disastrous 2019 BBC interview that the photo must have been doctored because he had “no recollection” of ever meeting Giuffre, much less having sex with her.

“This photo is not real,” Maxwell insisted, backing up Andrew’s claim. “I don’t recognize that picture and I don’t believe it is a real picture.”