A mystery brunette seen with Prince Andrew in a bombshell video shot at Jeffrey Epstein’s New York mansion in December 2010 is believed to be Katherine Keating, the daughter of former Australian prime minister Paul Keating.
Friends of Keating, now 37, say she is the woman pictured leaving the Manhattan townhouse and being waved at by Prince Andrew nine years ago.
Her father Paul Keating’s secretary told DailyMail.com he was ‘aware of what the enquiry was about, but he would not be making a comment’.
The video, first published by the Mail on Sunday, has plunged Prince Andrew into fresh controversy over his relationship with the pedophile, who took his own life earlier this month.
The video was taken in December 2010, less than 24 hours before an infamous photograph of the two men strolling in Central Park, and two months after Katherine Keating had left Sydney to move to New York to be closer to her then partner Andre Balazs.
Balazs, a hotelier and socialite, was an associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Balazs’ name was found in Epstein’s ‘black book’ which was discovered in court proceedings.
However, the likely presence of Keating in the video adds more intrigue, raising questions over what was happening in the townhouse that day.
Keating was one of two brunette young women seen coming or going; so too was a young blonde girl who left with Epstein himself.
There is no suggestion Ms Keating was aware of or involved in any of Mr Epstein’s criminal activities.
Key moment: At 4.40pm on December 6, 2010, an attractive brunette emerges from Epstein’s house, pauses for a moment and turns around to the door. She is believed to be Katherine Keating, then 29, the daughter of a former Australian prime minister
Carefree: The video showed Prince Andrew waving goodbye to a woman believed to be Katherine Keating, apparently unconcerned that he might be seen at the home of a convicted pedophile
Friends: Katherine Keating (circled) and Ghislaine Maxwell (second right) partied at a Dom Perignon-sponsored event in Maxwell’s home in 2013, launching a social network called Ideapod. It is now a publishing and education platform. They were pictured with (second left) then Icelandic prime minister Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, his wife Dorritt Moussaieff and her daughter Sharon
Couple: At the time the footage was taken at Epstein’s pedophile lair, Katherine Keating was the girlfriend of hotelier Andre Balazs (center). Her sister Alex (left) joined them at a party for the Australians in New York Fashion Foundation
Socialite: Katherine Keating partied in February 2014 with Princess Eugenie (second right), Prince Andrew’s daughter, and (from left) Sting’s eldest daughter Mickey Sumner and Misha Nonoo, the British-Iraqi fashion designer who is partly credited with introducing Prince Harry to her friend Megan Markle
At the time the photographs were taken, Epstein was already a convicted child sex offender, which would make him unusual company for Keating, whose father was the centre-left Australian prime minister from 1991 to 1996. Katherine Keating also once worked with the outspoken feminist journalist Gloria Steinem.
Epstein – who took his own life earlier this month – was on a child sex offender register, yet one observer told The Mail on Sunday that several of the women leaving and entering the home while Andrew was apparently inside ‘looked very young indeed’.
The Duke has vehemently denied claims by Epstein’s alleged ‘sex slave’ Virginia Roberts that she had sex with the Prince on three occasions, the first when she was 17 and once at the US millionaire’s now-notorious 40-room mansion at 9 East 71st Street in Manhattan, the setting of these pictures.
Her allegations, submitted to a court in 2014, were later thrown out by a judge who ordered them to be struck from the record as ‘immaterial and impertinent’.
Since Epstein’s suicide last weekend as he faced further child sex trafficking charges, Buckingham Palace has repeated its denial of wrongdoing by the Prince.
‘Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue. It is emphatically denied that the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts,’ it said.
Keating was not said to be part of Epstein’s circle until now. The source who disclosed the video to the Mail on Sunday described her as ‘very pretty,’ and said that the Prince said a few words to her.
‘If I hadn’t known it was Prince Andrew, I would have thought he owned the place. He looked so comfortable and relaxed as he stood there at the door,’ the source said.
‘He didn’t appear to have a concern in the world as he smiled and waved goodbye to the girl.
Katherine (left) is pictured with her father Paul and sister Caroline at the opening of a musical about the former prime minister in 2006
Keating moved to New York in 2010 to be with her then-boyfriend, hotelier Andre Blazas (left), who was 24 years her senior. Blazas was seen next to Ghislaine Maxwell (right) on a number of occasions at social events in New York, including this art exhibition opening in March, 2008
‘It was only as the girl walked off that he glanced around the door frame, almost as if to check no one was watching.’
Keating is a former political consultant to her father’s Labor Party who moved to New York in 2010 to be with her then-boyfriend, hotelier Andre Blazas, 24 years her senior.
But she has established herself as a New York socialite, Davos attendee and fashionable environmental campaigner since then.
The Australian now works as head of ‘sustainability’ for Maverick, a talent agency which represents Sir Paul McCartney and U2, among others.
Previously, however, she presented a series of interviews called One On One which were published by HuffingtonPost.com and which saw her interview Ghislaine Maxwell.
The video interview has now been removed, although others from the series are still online, including ones with former British prime minister Tony Blair – a friend of her father – and Russell Simmons, the hip hop mogul who has faced sexual assault allegations but who helped fund the series.
Keating, who was 29 when the video was shot, had recently moved to the U.S. to join Balazs, whose previous girlfriends include Uma Thurman and Chelsea Handler.
The two have now split; they were said to have met when she was vacationing in New York in 2009.
Intriguingly, the day after she was apparently videoed leaving Epstein’s property, the New York Daily News revealed her relationship with Balazs and told how they had spent time together at the Art Basel art fair in Miami.
First family: Katherine Keating (second left) was a teenager when her father Paul (second right) was Australian prime minister from 1991 to 1996. She has one brother Patrick (left) and two sisters, Caroline and Alexandra (right). Her parents separated in 1998 after 23 years of marriage and divorced a decade later
Inside the ‘madam’s’ lair: As well as apparently spending time in 2010 at Epstein’s home, Katherine Keating partied in 2013 at Ghislaine Maxwell’s E65th St Manhattan townhouse with Mark Bakacs (pictured with Keating), the founder of Ideapod, the social network the party was celebrating. His connection to Maxwell is unknown
Balazs, 62, is the CEO of André Balazs Properties, which owns Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont Hotel and London celebrity hotspot The Chiltern Firehouse.
He also appears in Epstein’s infamous little black book, which surfaced during court proceedings in 2015 and contains a list of names of up to 100 victims, as well as a sprinkling of famous associates.
Keating later went on to date photographer Francesco Carrozzini, 36, the aristocratic son of the late Italian Vogue editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani.
He was a co-executive producer of her video series and is now now married to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour’s daughter Bea Shaffer, 32.
She is now believed to be single but when the two collaborated, they worked together on the interview with Maxwell.
It saw her describe the accused procurer of underage girls for a the pedophile as ‘a philanthropist’ and discuss her work on The TerraMar Project – an eco-initiative aimed at protecting the ocean, which was hastily shuttered after Epstein was hit with new charges in July.
In it, Maxwell urged readers to sign a pledge to become ‘ocean citizens’ and railed about the sea becoming ‘the world’s dumping ground’.
The One On One series was part of WorldPost, which was set up by Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and another Epstein associate, Nicolas Berggruen, a billionaire American-German businessman, whose name also appears in the financier’s little black book.
Berggruen, 58, is the founder of the Berggruen Institute. Keating continues to be described as a ‘New Leader’ on the 21st Century Council.
According to its website, the Institute was ‘established in 2010 to develop foundational ideas about how to reshape political and social institutions in the face of global change.’
The interview was not Keating’s first known encounter with Maxwell either; in September 2013, the pair were both photographed attending a party for the launch of New York based social media platform IdeaPod at Ghislaine’s E65th street Manhattan home.
Although Keating now lives in Los Angeles, California, during her time in New York she got to know designer Mischa Nonoo, who is a friend of Meghan Markle, and was photographed with her at a party at The Whitney Museum of American Art in April 2015.
Keating currently holds a voluntary role as the vice-chair of the Whitney Museum’s Performance Committee.
In 2017 Keating became the publisher of VICE Impact, a channel of the website Vice.com which is now largely shuttered but which pushed calls for green policies.
More friends: Keating was seen in 2015 with Misha Nonoo, the desginer who is a close friend of Meghan Markle, and with Tiffany & Co. design director Francesca Amfitheatrof, at an event for the Whitney Museum, where Keating sits on an advisory board
She was given a brief to raise awareness of ‘global social issues’ such as climate change and women’s empowerment, and wrote several articles on those themes.
Speaking in a February 2018 interview with The Last Magazine about her role at Vice, she said her biggest hope was to persuade people to get out and vote and do more to champion social causes.
She said: ‘Having grown up in politics, personally I have always been in love with the political process and being engaged in politics.
‘I never understood why people never made that connection of really valuing their vote.
‘That’s the thing that people should care about. This is not about forcing the things that I care about upon our audience. It’s giving them the capabilities to be more active and engaged citizens.’
However she left after shortly after that interview to join the talent agency Maverick as head of sustainability, where she continues to hold other roles.
She currently sits on the ‘Ambassador Council’ at International Crisis Group, a non-profit founded by financier George Soros that describes itself as an ‘independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflict.’
The group’s CEO from 2000 to 2009 was her father’s foreign minister, Gareth Evans.
She also sat on the advisory committee of the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 event, which brought a mix of artists, influencers and politicians to South Africa in December 2018 to celebrate Mandela’s legacy and raise awareness of social issues.
Her father was hardly a close friend of the royal family. He pushed for Australia to ditch Queen Elizabeth as head of state and become a republic – and in 1992 committed a protocol breach by putting his arm round the Queen at a reception.
The gaffe earned him the nickname ‘The Lizard of Oz’ in British tabloid newspapers.