The Maxwell Tapes - Part 3 - Prince Andrew

Trigger Warning: Discussion of sexual abuse of a minor

On July 24-25, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (Trump's former defense lawyer in the Stormy Daniels Hush Money case) sat down to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, in hopes of easing public pressure about the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, without actually releasing the files. However, this only increased suspicion, as Maxwell was moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas just after completing the interviews, and supposedly clearing Donald Trump of any wrongdoing. On August 22nd, the DOJ released the interviews, both as transcripts and audio files, to the public. There was intent behind doing this, because they didn't need to do both; the transcripts would have sufficed. The audio files are meant to elicit a psychological response to the emotional stories of a criminal mastermind.

Don't be fooled.

This is a breakdown of the interviews and my analysis as a transcriber of 14 years.

This section launches into the sexual deviancy of Jeffrey Epstein, and how he made his connections with people like Prince Andrew and Jean-Luc Brunel over the years. On its surface, the conversation questions whether Ghislaine Maxwell took part in any of these environmental factors, circumstances, social settings, travel, or worked as a bounty hunter, as it were, for Epstein's "entourage." But without being facetious, it comes off as a meeting of friends, brunch in the park, a late-night conversation over dinner and wine. If you didn't know the elements surrounding Ghislaine Maxwell's time in prison and her connections to one of the biggest child sex rings in recent history, you might think you were listening in on a conversation with old friends.

Ghislaine begins this portion of the interview by guiding the narrative, as she often does, controlling the who, what, when, where, why, and how, and pulling Todd Blanche from his line of questioning, never to return. She talks about recruiting masseuses, who were "always people in their late 20s, early 30s," and often men, at least in the early '90s. By this time Epstein had developed a sort of entourage that traveled with him everywhere, that included a masseuse and yoga instructors. And she says that although massages were given on Epstein's planes, nothing could have happened on the Gulfstream because there were no rooms, and she would have seen anything untoward. But the Boeing 727, the “Lolita Express,” had rooms that were closed off, and she couldn't remember whether she'd seen anything there or not.

Courtesy of the U.S. Attorney’s Office

By this time Epstein was getting massaged two and three times a day, and she blamed his sexual aggression on taking testosterone. His masseuse, she says, was in her 40s, and relatively regular, which doesn't line up with her prior statement of more of a revolving door because he "got bored" easily. But not this one--she was older, married, and messing around with Maxwell's boyfriend. "I'm square," Ghislaine says, claiming she never suspected a thing because Epstein "had difficulty having an erection." At least that's what he'd told her from their first encounter, and why they hadn't had a whole lot of sex in their relationship. Poor Ghislaine was shell-shocked by the fact he would cheat on her, repeating that they both had medical conditions that prevented them from sexual activity. But however angry it made her, she continued to spend time with him regularly, and stayed on his payroll for at least another 10 years.

About the allegations in Epstein’s 2008 trial, she says she is "embarrassed to say" she didn't believe them, though 44 women came forward to accuse him of sexual abuse. However, she still prioritizes her own innocence.

"You have to understand, not a single one of those 44 women mentioned me in a single report." - Ghislaine Maxwell

She says she never knew them, saw them, recruited them, or even spent any time with Epstein, still claiming that she didn't come to his houses or have keys for any of the properties.

"I was not allowed to go to his houses unless I was summoned or told. I was not allowed to answer his phones...you can tell this is a bit of a sore point." - Ghislaine Maxwell

Much of this portion of the interview discusses Epstein's relationship with Virginia (Roberts) Giuffre, though her name is redacted. But with simple clues, like her boyfriend Tony Figuerora (who isn't redacted), it's easy to know who they're talking about. Virginia's name is likely redacted here because a person reading these transcripts or listening to the interviews would already have an opinion about Virginia, and would likely side with her story over Maxwell's due to overwhelming evidence. And any mention of Virginia's name would easily sway the audience away from Maxwell's story, and any empathy it might have evoked.

Virginia (Roberts) Giuffre

Maxwell is clearly very jealous of Virginia and her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, similarly to most women who had his long-term attention, such as Eva (Andersson) Dubin. Much of Maxwell's story is walking the line between having no knowledge of Epstein's whereabouts or intentions, and really wishing she'd had more of his attention, though this is just what I've gleaned from her testimony.

Carolyn Andriano

Carolyn Andriano, another of Epstein's victims, is likely the other name that has been redacted in this portion of the interview.

Maxwell says that when Andriano came to the house in Palm Beach, she met a woman with short, dark hair and an accent. But she claims this was the butler, Juan Alessi's wife, who was Hispanic. "This was Juan's wife that she saw, not me. I've been brought up with a very strong British accent." But Andriano herself testified that the woman who greeted her at the door was "an older lady" with "an accent and shoulder-length hair," and that she couldn't pronounce the woman's first name and just referred to her as "Maxwell."

Ghislaine Maxwell - The Jeremy Kyle Show

Here Maxwell claims, again, to have slow cognition due to her time in solitary confinement and being "woken up every 15 minutes." Blanche sees that she's getting worked up and tells her, "I don't want you to be burdened by what people said at trial or what the press says." She saw no children under 18 in the Palm Beach house, she says, including Carolyn, whose name is still redacted.

I'm going to stop here, because something fairly significant happened in the interview and the subsequent transcript. While Virginia Giuffre and Carolyn Andriano's names were redacted for the likely purpose of removing bias from the listener/reader, at one point Ghislaine Maxwell names a minor Jane Doe from "my trial." I went back into the court records and articles about Maxwell's trial, and sure enough, this Jane Doe has never publicly come forward. Therefore the Department of Justice and the private company providing these transcripts, Magna Legal Services, issued a major breach of confidentiality. I'll discuss this more at the end of the article.

Blanche goes on to ask Maxwell if Epstein ever worked with any sort of intelligence, such as the FBI, CIA, or Defense. She says no, claiming he was too much of a show-off to keep something like that quiet. But she referred back to his private business, which tracked down “stolen money" for its clients, saying little else.

Ghislaine Maxwell and Princess Diana at the premier of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 1984

They launch into a conversation about the Royal Family and Epstein's connections to people like Princess Diana and Prince Andrew. She mentions events in London where Epstein might have met certain "high-society" individuals, but claims it was never she who introduced them, again saying that this person or that person would never have gotten along with Epstein, who, in her words, was anti-social and unfriendly. She starts to tell a story about Princess Diana, but stops right away, saying, "I don't want to speak bad of Diana, but - I'm not going to do that." But she did claim that Sara Ferguson, Prince Andrew's wife at the time, had been friends with Epstein first, and often "put the moves on Jeffrey." Maxwell says she felt left out of the conversation and wasn't hanging out with any of them when they all became good friends. "I thought the whole thing was annoying, and I was pissed off."

Prince Andrew and Virginia (Roberts) Giuffre at Ghislaine Maxwell’s London townhouse - March 11, 2001

Maxwell here starts to talk about the story of Virginia Giuffre and Prince Andrew, scoffing at the whole idea. "What's an even bigger word than 'bullshit?'" Blanche asks why, and she again controls the conversation.

"I'm going to tell you right now. I'm so happy to tell you. I'm, like, excited. I'm beyond excited." - Ghislaine Maxwell.

She brings up several pieces of "evidence" to "prove" that Virginia could never have been sexually abused by Prince Andrew.

Flight logs indicate that Virginia Roberts “VR” flew from Morocco (GMTT) to Luton Airport in London on March 9th, 2001

1. The well-known photograph of Virginia, Prince Andrew, and Ghislaine Maxwell, she says, is fake because the date on the back of the original photo said "January 2001," and later Giuffre stated that it was March 11th, 2001, which aligned with the flight logs. And because her story changed, so did her credibility.

2. March 11th, 2001 was Maxwell's mother's 80th birthday, which took place at her brother's house in Oxfordshire, 90 minutes away. So there's no way that she could have been in a picture in London the same day she celebrated outside the city.

3. The outfit she wore in the "fake" picture is the same outfit she wore to her mother's birthday, so therefore she wasn't actually in the picture with Virginia, she was actually somewhere in the English countryside.

This would seem to corroborate Virginia's story that the picture was taken the same day as Maxwell's mother's birthday, March 11th.

4. Virginia and Prince Andrew couldn't have had sex in Ghislaine's 44 Kinnerton Street townhouse because it was "too small." "The idea of him doing anything of that nature in my house, that's the size of this room, is so mind-blowingly not conceivable." It's only 900 square feet, she claims (except property records show it's closer to 1500), and says it used to be a stable that was a "poor man's home behind a rich man's home." The bathroom itself, where the abuse is purported to have happened the first time (of three), is also much too small. "The bath is an old Victorian bath...and it...looks like a blivet. The bathroom itself is so small you can't lie flat on the floor, so it couldn't happen on the floor."

Either Ghislaine Maxwell's sex life was very, very dull, or she's never been to a show in a shady punk-rock bar, because these excuses are not hitting. If a person wanted to have sex, or didn't, in a 2’x2’ box, they could make it happen.

Ian Maxwell and an unidentified woman in Ghislaine Maxwell’s townhouse bathroom - The Telegraph

A picture would float around the internet years later, showing two people sitting in Maxwell's tub, one with a mask of Prince Andrew's face, the other of Virginia Giuffre, showing just how small the space was. Maxwell admits in the interview it was she who put her brother Ian up to it, with a quick collect call from prison.

"I put my brother in there to see what would happen." - Ghislaine Maxwell

5. Maxwell explains it's utterly not possible to have had sex in her bathroom, because she lined the walls with mirrors to make it look bigger, and if they had, it would be like "she was having sex with 5000 generations of the Royal Family...There is no way in God's green earth if that had taken place that this is something you would miss, because it's - you couldn't miss it. If you were standing in there you'd see the whole - the FBI, the whole Department of Justice standing behind you."

What?

6. Lastly, Maxwell says that Prince Andrew simply could not have had sex with the young teenager because, well, "He's so English. He had a tie on."

I'm sold.

Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein, and Bill Clinton - 1993

Blanche keeps bringing up Bill Clinton, asking questions about his connection to both Epstein and Maxwell, including his daughter Chelsea Clinton's wedding. Maxwell continues to shut him down--on this one subject--stating that Clinton is relatively unconnected with Epstein other than through her and specific social circles. He is the one name that the legal team circles back to over and over again.

But they also bring up Piers Morgan, who was allegedly not connected to Epstein; JFK Jr., who appears to be a giggly topic for Maxwell, whom she met at Andrew Cuomo's 1990 wedding and "fancied;" Alan Dershowitz, who was Epstein's lawyer but allegedly never participated in any inappropriate activities; Jean-Luc Brunel, the modeling scout who also offed himself in a French jail cell, whom she said came to Epstein's island; and Harvey Weinstein, whom she claimed not to know well but got along with his wife, Georgiana, because she was English.

A page from Epstein’s Black Book - Gawker

The conversation ends just before lunch, with the subject of the "black book," or "client list," or "list."

"There is no list, we'll start with that. The genesis of that story I can actually trace for you from its absolute inception, if that's what you're interested in." - Ghislaine Maxwell

A note: at the time of Jeffrey Epstein's arrest, cell phones had been available for nearly 20 years. And the Nokia 6310, or the Ericsson T39, or the Siemens SL45, while being simplistic, all came standard with contact lists for storing phone numbers and other pertinent information. So maybe we're not calling it a "black book," but Jeffrey Epstein certainly had a list. You have a list. I have a list. Even my kids have a list. So the idea that he didn't keep a list of clients is ludicrous. I still have the names of babysitters from 2011 somewhere in my phone. No one doesn't have a list, and no one's phone doesn't store contact information like numbers, emails, addresses, and even GPS location. So for the last time, don't tell me there isn't a list, because whoever has Jeffrey Epstein's cell phone has "the list," and that includes whatever cell carrier he used.

"First...to be short, there is no list, there's no client list, nothing like that." - David Markus, Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney

Attorney Gloria Allred (center) leaves a NY court house with two women, a woman who did not wish to be identified (left) and Teala Davies(right), who have publicly accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse - Getty Images

We'll pick up where we left off when I transcribe the last hour of the first day of interviews tomorrow, but I wanted to finish with some information I gathered after discovering that the young Jane Doe's name had been published publicly on the DOJ website. Again, I won't publish her name myself, and I won't indicate where in the transcript her name was said, other than privately to an attorney or someone who can protect the victim. I have spoken with one attorney about the matter, and several of you have spoken with attorneys as well. The consensus is, at this time, that the only repercussions for a breach of confidentiality is if the Jane Doe, herself, comes forward with a lawsuit against the DOJ for violating a protective order or at least disclosing identity. Likely this isn't classified information, but it is most certainly attorney-client privilege, and should never have been published, especially with the redactions of the other women's names. However, if the Jane Doe does decide to take the DOJ to court—which would be a tough, uphill battle—she would inevitably disclose her information, because the case is so public now as it stands, which I'm sure is something she's not willing to do at this moment. I don't know if she is a member of the Epstein victims coming forward on September 3rd, but either way, this choice is hers and hers alone.

I will continue to do my best to put victims' stories front and center, while respecting their privacy and choice to come forward or not. But shame on the Department of Justice for not protecting them first.

For further reading…

The Maxwell Tapes - Part 1 - How They Met

The Maxwell Tapes - Part 2 - Show Me the Money

Ellie is an author, editor, and owner of Red Pencil Transcripts, and works with filmmakers, podcasts, and journalists all over the world. She lives with her family just outside of New York City.