Until the baffling events of this week, the most famous photograph of Virginia Giuffre was taken of her as a 17-year-old girl standing alongside a grinning Prince Andrew in Ghislaine Maxwell’s Belgravia mews house.
This was the shocking image which dragged the King’s brother into the dark heart of the Jeffrey Epstein sex abuse scandal. Captured in March 2001, it was a snapshot in time to illustrate the story of a young woman brutally exploited, trafficked and abused until she decided to light the touch-paper on an extraordinary David and Goliath legal fightback.
What are we to make, then, of the equally disturbing photograph which emerged this week, exactly 24 years on, of Virginia, now a 41-year-old married mother of three living in Perth, Australia, lying in a hospital bed, her eyes half-closed, her face battered and bruised, electrode sensors stuck to her chest?
At first, it seemed a terrible accident had taken place – a speeding bus crash according to Virginia herself, who wrote in a dramatic farewell Instagram post that she had suffered kidney failure, been given just ‘four days to live’ and was ‘ready to go’.
But the crash, according to Australian police – and the driver behind the wheel of the bus – was nothing more than a minor bump which knocked out a tail light, with no report made of any major injuries.
A spokesman for Ms Giuffre, formerly known as Roberts, quickly claimed she had ‘made a mistake’ and had not intended to make the post public, although it hasn’t been taken down.
Over the past week, these opposing accounts have seen the Duke of York’s accuser, who is now a charity campaigner and advocate for other sex abuse survivors, accused of exaggeration and, even, cruelly, of being a fantasist.
But, as the Mail has now discovered, there is more to that second photograph than first meets the eye, not least the toxic breakdown of Virginia’s 22-year marriage to Robert Giuffre, the man she once credited with saving her life and giving her the happy ever after she had always longed for.
This week, an investigation has revealed how the couple’s very acrimonious split and her ongoing separation from her three children, who remain in their father’s custody, has driven California-born Virginia to the brink of despair and left family members back home in the US increasingly concerned for her well-being.
Virginia Giuffre, formerly Virginia Roberts, holding up a photo of her 16-year-old self
Virginia Giuffre’s spokesman quickly claimed she had ‘made a mistake’ and had not intended to make the instagram post public, although it hasn’t been taken down
The Mail has learnt that she had been desperately unhappy for years but for a long time was afraid to leave and strike out on her own.
‘She is so ashamed that she was able to bring down Epstein and Maxwell and yet was unable to find the strength to leave her unhappy marriage,’ a source told this newspaper.
Back in the US, Virginia’s father Sky Roberts said his daughter was ‘very depressed’ and ‘in really bad shape’. ‘There’s everything else she’s been going through with the divorce and not being able to see her kids. I’m hoping she can hang on. She’s only 41. She’s got a lot of life to live.’
Her 62-year-old uncle, Jet Roberts, speaking exclusively to the Mail this week, said: ‘We love Virginia. We are worried about her. Her family care for her a great deal.’ Another family source also hinted at the ongoing crisis in her life, saying that ‘a lot is going on over there’.
Indeed, if hers was once the uplifting story of a victim turned survivor, of a woman who fearlessly took on the men who abused her, then – as we shall see – there are now very real fears that Virginia’s turbulent past is coming back to haunt her.
The clearest evidence of her vicious ongoing divorce battle can be found among the daily listings at Joondalup Magistrates’ Court in Perth where, just ten days before last week’s minor traffic accident on a rural road outside the city, Virginia was charged with breaching a ‘family violence restraining order’ made in response to a claim lodged by her estranged husband.
Such orders, according to Australian law, are made to protect family members, including children, at risk of physical, financial, emotional, psychological and sex abuse. But they are also regarded as highly controversial because of the way in which they can be used by warring spouses who wish to weaponise the court system in their favour.
A source close to Virginia told the Mail this week that she ‘looks forward to defending herself against his malicious claim’ at her next court hearing on April 9.
Signalling just how bitter her ongoing fight with her estranged ex has become, a month earlier, 49-year-old Robert Giuffre also appeared in the Perth court listings. He was fined around £600 for reckless driving and lost his licence for six months, but also faces a separate charge of ‘providing inadequate facility for firearms’. No further details of either claim have been reported.The couple, who married just ten days after meeting in 2002, separated at the beginning of the year after more than two decades of marriage. While Robert and the couple’s three children remain at the family home, a lavish £920,000 mansion in Perth’s beachside Ocean Reef suburb, Virginia is now living 60km away at the isolated, rented, 40-acre country bolthole the family have visited in recent years.
According to neighbours, she cuts a lonely figure and regularly invites them over to the once-happy holiday home where the Giuffres built a dirt track for their teens to ride their bikes.
A fortnight ago, she posted several photographs of her three children, writing: ‘My beautiful babies have no clue how much I love them and they’re being poisoned with lies.
The famous photograph of Virginia Roberts was taken of her as a 17-year-old girl standing alongside a grinning Prince Andrew in Ghislaine Maxwell’s Belgravia mews house
‘I miss them so very much. I have been through hell and 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.’
A desperately sad state of affairs, then, for a woman who appeared to have found peace and stability in the wake of a childhood filled with trauma during which, let us not forget, she was abused by a family friend, ran away from home, spent time living rough and was in and out of foster care before going to work for Epstein at just 17.
Just a year ago she was posting happy family photographs from Perth Zoo where she and her ‘hubby’ Robert posed with their arms lovingly wrapped around each other.
A month before that, she posted a photograph of them cuddling, writing that ‘Me & my happily ever after – 21 years ago this amazing man rescued me from Epstein and Maxwell’s clutches. I thank God everyday for putting this beautiful man in my life. I love you Robbie G.’
The couple met in 2002 in the Thai city of Chiang Mai, where Virginia had gone on an eight-week trip to train as a masseuse. Her flights, hotel bill and the cost of the course were all paid for by billionaire financier Epstein, into whose cult-like world she was drawn at the age of 16 and by whom, she would later claim, she was ‘passed around like a platter of fruit’ among his rich friends.
During the first month she was there, she was still in the thrall of Epstein and Maxwell and made regular calls to inform them of her progress. ‘I was totally in his power. I never thought of trying to escape,’ she later said.
That all changed when she went with friends to watch a Muay Thai kickboxing tournament and first clapped eyes on Australian martial arts expert Robert Giuffre.
After the tournament, they went for pizza as part of a wider group and, at the end of the evening, arranged to meet again.
A relationship began and, faced with the grim prospect of returning to New York – and Epstein and Maxwell – Virginia confided in Robert about the horrors of her life there.
He responded by asking her to marry him and return with him to Australia. Given what she had already suffered at Epstein’s hands, it’s hardly surprising that the only escape route Virginia then saw for herself lay in the arms of another man.
‘Robert taught me how to live again,’ she told the Mail in 2015.
The couple’s wedding photograph from the Buddhist ceremony at the Doi Suthep Temple in Chiang Mai shows Virginia, as slender as a blade, a vision of youthful beauty, wearing a simple white halterneck dress and flower crown.
A Buddhist monk translated the ceremony and they were given white fabric bracelets to wear instead of a wedding certificate.
She later recalled how afraid she was when she phoned Epstein to tell him:
‘I’m getting married.’ Epstein’s enraged response was to snarl ‘Have a good life’ before slamming down the phone.
She and Robert later underwent an official marriage service in Australia, witnessed by members of Robert’s Sicilian family.
In 2011, Virginia told the Mail that ‘the first few months after I married Robert were the worst. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him much. No man wants to know his wife has been traded out. I felt very alone. I was having panic attacks and seeing a psychiatrist and was on antidepressants.’
Despite throwing herself into married life on the other side of the planet from the evil man who had once controlled her life, it wasn’t long before the past began to creep into the present.
Virginia was pregnant with her second child when, in 2005, a Florida woman reported to police that Epstein had abused her 14-year-old daughter.
An investigation led to the discovery of multiple victims and thousands of explicit photographs at Epstein’s various homes.
Virginia once gushed over her dream man Robbie Giuffre. Now she’s locked in a tug of love with him over access to their kids
By 2007, the FBI were knocking on the front door of what was then the Giuffres’ modest bungalow home in a rural suburb of Sydney, telling her they had found photos and secret footage of her at Epstein’s Palm Beach house in Florida. Because she had been under 18 at the time, she was legally under the age of consent.
One agent later recalled how reluctant Virginia was to be drawn into the scandal, telling him: ‘Let this be in my past.’
Six months later, when approached again by the Australian Federal Police, she changed her mind.
She was due to be a key witness for the prosecution, then in 2008 Epstein struck a plea bargain with prosecutors, under which he was allowed to plead guilty to two relatively minor charges and avoid more serious charges of sex trafficking.
But Epstein’s victims were still allowed to bring civil cases against him. Virginia, whose grim account was backed up by court documents, eyewitness accounts, photographs and flight details from Epstein’s private jets, was among them. Epstein settled dozens of cases, including Virginia’s, for undisclosed sums. He hanged himself in prison while awaiting further sex trafficking charges in 2019.
The Epstein scandal undoubtedly overshadowed the Giuffres’ marriage. The family relocated to the US in 2013 and stayed for several years, living in Florida and Colorado. By 2019, they were back in Australia, living in Cairns, Queensland.
In 2020, Virginia and her family moved to Perth, where they bought a sprawling six-bedroom beachside mansion with a swimming pool and guest annexe, now registered in her husband’s name. It must have been an extraordinary move for a woman who, for a time, as a 14-year-old, had found herself living on the streets.
If Virginia hoped to live her life out of the spotlight, then the publicity surrounding the civil lawsuit she planned to bring against Prince Andrew, alleging she was coerced into have sex with him when she was a minor, put paid to that.
In 2022, the Prince agreed to a multi-million-pound out-of-court settlement – thought to be between £3m and £12m – despite denying that he ever sexually abused her.
By then, Virginia had already ploughed a chunk of her fortune into charity work. She set up Victims Refuse Silence in 2015 and relaunched the non-profit organisation under the name Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (SOAR) in 2021.
The organisation’s emblem is a blue morpho butterfly, chosen to symbolise the metamorphosis from victim to survivor.
In recent years, Virginia herself appeared to be the embodiment of this transformative process, speaking out about her experiences, determined to use her horrifying ordeal as Epstein’s sex slave to help other young women.
But the sorely unhappy woman the world saw this week appeared to be
a world away from that empowered survivor.
Her father Sky Roberts told the Mail that the family are ‘trying to get her spirits up so she doesn’t just give up’. Explaining that he didn’t have the money to fly out to support her, he added: ‘I’m hoping she can hang on.’
Virginia, who was a passenger in the white Toyota pick-up involved in the ‘minor collision’ with the bus last week, is understood to have been treated at a local health centre after the incident for a pre-existing condition and released.
She later checked into another hospital in the early hours of Tuesday – after the alarming Instagram post.
It is understood she remains under medical supervision.
Ultimately, it’s impossible not to wonder whether the photograph she posted, and the agonising words she wrote, were a cry for help from a woman whose past still casts a long and tragic shadow – a woman who has spent her adult life with a man at her side and must now gather her courage yet again as she faces the daunting prospect of a future alone.
