Virginia Giuffre is gone. Dead by suicide. And the men she spent two decades trying to hold accountable are still alive, still free – and tonight, many of them will sleep easier than they have in years.
More than 14 years ago, she stood up and accused Prince Andrew of sexually abusing her as a teenager, after she was allegedly loaned out to him by superstar of evil Jeffrey Epstein. It was the moment that changed everything. It turned Virginia from a victim of men to a lightning rod. And it marked the beginning of a story that has dominated my career ever since.
For the past two decades, this case has taken me across the world – from New York courtrooms to Caribbean islands, from the streets of Paris to the stately homes of England – tracking down those who enabled billionaire Epstein, those who turned a blind eye, and those who inflicted the abuse that Virginia and so many other girls suffered.
I’ve chased down sealed records, buried leads, long-forgotten witnesses. I’ve sat in rooms with survivors whose pain was so fresh it felt like it happened yesterday. I’ve interviewed lawyers, insiders, whistleblowers, and on more than one occasion, been warned to stop looking.
Virginia’s story wasn’t just one of individual trauma – it was the key that unlocked much wider abuse. Her allegation against Prince Andrew, which he emphatically denies, didn’t just challenge the credibility of a royal; it blew open a door that exposed how deeply embedded Epstein’s network was in the machinery of global power.
Virginia’s voice forced the world to reckon with a truth it had tried very hard to ignore: that this wasn’t one evil man with a taste for underage girls. It was a network. Funded, protected, and operated by rich and powerful men who knew precisely what they were doing. And now she is dead.
Her suicide marks the end of something. A brutal, tragic full stop. She fought harder than most ever would – and yet justice never truly came, not for her. Not for the dozens of girls trafficked, exploited, and discarded by Epstein and the men in his orbit. Not for the survivors who testified, who signed NDAs, who were pushed into the shadows when the headlines moved on.
By dying by suicide, Virginia has ensured that many powerful men, some of whom likely woke up each morning wondering whether this would be the day their name came out, will now be able to breathe easier. She is no longer here to give testimony. To press for discovery. To pursue civil action. To speak. And American prosecutors, despite all their talk of justice, never brought any of those men to court.
They never had to explain how they knew Epstein, what they did on his plane, why they spent nights in his homes. They walked away untouched. The system worked for them. How bitterly ironic it is that the ones most responsible – Jeffrey Epstein and fashion scout Jean-Luc Brunel – both took the coward’s way out, dying by suicide before they could be truly held to account.
And yet it’s Virginia, a woman who spent most of her life trying to survive what they did to her, who has now taken her own life under the weight of it all. She didn’t die because she was weak. She died because they broke her. And they never paid for it. What happened to her happened to dozens of others.
Girls recruited, groomed, and trafficked – often from vulnerable homes, with few options and no one to protect them. Many are still out there. Some are still trying to put their lives back together. And even now, nearly six years after Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell, his presence looms. The trauma didn’t die with him.
A few weeks ago, Virginia posted a photo from a hospital bed. Her face was bruised. She wrote that she was “four days from death.” It was shocking. Disturbing. A public cry for help. But the help never came. Now, her three children are without their mother. That’s Epstein’s legacy too. And Brunel’s. And every man who passed through Epstein’s orbit and said nothing, did nothing, and paid nothing. They’ll be breathing easier today.
Because Virginia Giuffre can no longer press for truth, justice, or accountability. She can no longer name names. She can no longer remind the world of the things they did – men like a prince of England, who settled her lawsuit with millions and denied everything with the arrogance of impunity. But her absence should haunt them.
Virginia Giuffre deserved justice. Now her death should shake the authorities who failed her back into action. That way, her death will never be in vain.
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