Culture

All The Most Bizarre Moments From Prince Andrew’s Trainwreck Interview About Jeffrey Epstein

Here's why everyone is talking about *that* interview.

by Joseph Earp  18 November 2019
Prince Andrew interview over Jeffrey Epstein

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Over the weekend, Prince Andrew sat down in front of the cameras and tried to justify his longstanding friendship with convicted sex offender and extremely dead millionaire Jeffrey Epstein. It didn’t go well.

Epstein, a friend of the stars and uber-rich financier, was arrested earlier this year on the charge of sex trafficking. It wasn’t the first time that allegations had been made against the man: in 2005, he was found guilty of procuring an underage sex worker. But this time, rather than face the court, Epstein hung himself in his cell. (Allegedly.)

Since Epstein’s death, a number of his famous friends have come under the spotlight for maintaining ties with a man who had a criminal sex offender record. Chiefly, media have circled around Prince Andrew, a member of the royal family — the Queen’s son, no less — who had been friends with the dead man since at least 1999.

In particular, the Prince has faced criticism for being photographed leaving Epstein’s New York home in 2010 — five years after it was made public that Epstein had abused an underage woman. The public scrutiny got so intense, in fact, that Andrew apparently had no choice to appear on camera to discuss his behaviour.

Which is where things straight up fell apart.

The interview is so fraught — so messy — that it deserves to be plucked apart shocking moment by shocking moment.

Prince Andrew Reckons Epstein Was Great At “Bringing People Together”

The most jaw-dropping moments from the interview, all of which have gone viral on Twitter, come from deep in the thing, when Andrew is already sweating (or can he sweat? more on that later). But he starts out on a terrible foot from the very get go, when he says that a convicted pedophile was great at “bringing people together.”

It’s all in an attempt to distance himself from Epstein, who he reckons he only knew through other people. But still, goddamn, not the best way to get this horrendous ball rolling.

Prince Andrew Says He Was Too Honourable Not To Stay At A Pedophile’s House

The first real doozy comes when the Prince is directly pushed on his decision to stay at the house of a convicted sex offender. Stuck, the royal first calls Epstein’s house little more than a “convenient place to stay.” Which, like, goodness me.

But it gets worse. Though he notes now that in retrospect it was a mistake, Prince Andrew claims he only stayed with the criminal in order to break up the friendship. And the only reason he did it in person, rather than over the phone, is because he’s just too dang upstanding.

“I’ve gone through this in my mind so many times,” he says. “At the end of the day, at the benefit of all the hindsight that one can have, it was definitely the wrong thing to do. But at the time, I felt it was the honourable and right thing to do. And I admit fully that my judgement was probably coloured by my tendency to be too honourable.”

He Reckons He Couldn’t Have Committed A Crime Himself, Because He Doesn’t Sweat

In the aftermath of Epstein’s death, Prince Andrew has been accused of sexually abusing a minor himself, by one of the dead millionaire’s victims. That victim has a very specific story to tell about the abuse: she has given an exact date when the incident occurred, and has described dancing with the “very sweaty” Prince.

When that allegation was read against him, the royal decided not to take issue with the assault itself. Instead, presumably in an attempt to generally discredit the victim, he fixated on the idea that he had been sweating.

“There’s a slight problem with the sweating,” he began. “Because… I have a peculiar medical condition which is I don’t sweat. Or, I didn’t sweat at the time … because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline during the Falklands war when I was shot at. And I simply — it was almost impossible for me to sweat.

“And it’s only because I have done a number of things in the recent past that I am starting to be able to do it again.”

Quick reminder: the ‘it’ in that sentence is ‘sweat’.

He Got Pizza Express Involved In This Mess Somehow

In an attempt to distance himself from the allegations, the royal offered an alibi for why he could not have abused Epstein’s victim. That alibi? That he was at a Pizza Express in Woking.

For the record, Pizza Express is a chain restaurant in the United Kingdom — it’s a little classy, but not overly so. That makes it: A) a bizarre place for a royal to be visiting, and B) a bizarre place to be messed up in all this.

In fact, Andrew even acknowledged the former point himself. He reckons that’s how he can definitely remember that day, despite the years that have passed.

“Going to Pizza Express in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do,” he said. “It’s a very unusual thing for me to do. And I remember it weirdly distinctly.”

In fact, in the hours since the interview, Pizza Express has started trending.

But hey, at least the social media manager is taking it in their stride.

Life in 2019: it’s weird!