Virginia Roberts has said she is ‘calling BS’ on ‘ridiculous excuses’ from ‘people on the inside’ which seek to rubbish her claim of having had sex with Prince Andrew while a teenager trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, adding, ‘because that’s what it is’.
The 35-year-old, who has said she was forced to sleep with Prince Andrew when she was 17, also claims in a BBC interview to be screened tonight that she ‘had to keep him happy’.
Virginia Roberts has continually alleged that she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and had to have sex with Andrew, which the Duke of York categorically denies.
She told the BBC’s Panorama in an interview due to be shown on BBC One at 9pm tonight that ‘The people on the inside are going to keep coming up with these ridiculous excuses – like his arm was elongated or the photo was doctored, or he came to New York to break up with Jeffrey Epstein.
‘I mean, come on, I’m calling BS on this, because that’s what it is.’
She also told the BBC that she knew she ‘had to keep him happy because that’s what Jeffrey and Ghislaine (Maxwell, Epstein’s then-girlfriend) would have expected from me.’
Miss Roberts, now known as Virginia Giuffre, urged the British public to ‘stand up beside me to help me fight this fight’ and ‘not accept this as being OK’.
In the interview with BBC Panorama, she told how Andrew was ‘the most hideous dancer I’ve ever seen in my life’ and ‘his sweat was … raining basically everywhere’.
Miss Roberts’s interview took place before the duke’s appearance on Newsnight.
She added: ‘I implore the people in the UK to stand up beside me, to help me fight this fight, to not accept this as being OK.
‘This is not some sordid sex story. This is a story of being trafficked, This is a story of abuse and this is a story of your guys’ royalty.’
The hour-long investigative programme entitled The Prince and the Epstein Scandal was first trailed last Thursday.
In clips released ahead of the screening, Miss Roberts alleged how she was brought to London by Epstein in 2001, introduced to Andrew and taken to Tramp nightclub, and asked by the duke to dance.
She told Panorama reporter Darragh Macintyre: ‘He is the most hideous dancer I’ve ever seen in my life.
‘It was horrible and this guy was sweating all over me, his sweat was like it was raining basically everywhere, I was just like grossed out from it, but I knew I had to keep him happy because that’s what Jeffrey and Ghislaine would have expected from me.’
In his recent Newsnight interview, Andrew claimed he had a medical condition in 2001, after suffering an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when he was shot at, which meant he did not sweat.
When they had left the club, Miss Roberts said the socialite Ms Maxwell gave her instructions. She added: ‘In the car Ghislaine tells me that I have to do for Andrew what I do for Jeffrey and that just made me sick.’
She said that later that evening she had sex with Andrew upstairs at Maxwell’s house in Belgravia.
The duke has insisted he has no memory of meeting Miss Roberts, saying: ‘I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened. I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever.’
He denies having sex with her.
The duke has been pictured with his arm around Miss Roberts’s waist at Ghislaine Maxwell’s house.
He said he had no memory of the photo being taken and questioned whether it was his own hand in the image – claims derided as ‘BS’ by Miss Roberts.
Andrew was pictured with his arm around Virginia Roberts’s waist at Ghislaine Maxwell’s house in London in March 2001, although he has raised doubts about the veracity of the photograph
Prince Andrew leaves his home at Royal Lodge at Windsor Great Park in Berkshire today
‘He knows what happened. I know what happened and there’s only one of us telling the truth, and I know that’s me.’
Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in a prison in New York City in August
Andrew’s attempts to defend himself against Miss Roberts’s previous accusations and explain his friendship with convicted sex offender Epstein in a BBC Newsnight interview last month were branded a ‘car crash’ and led to him withdrawing from public duties.
He was widely criticised for failing to show remorse for his association with the disgraced financier or empathy with Epstein’s victims during his television appearance.
He has resigned from a large number of patronages and seen organisations he was once involved with sever ties.
Miss Roberts claimed in court papers in Florida that she was forced to have sex with Andrew when she was aged 17, below the state’s age of consent.
However, that allegation was struck out by a judge in 2015 for being ‘immaterial and impertinent’.
Andrew was interviewed by Emily Maitlis in a Newsnight programme shown on November 16
In response to tonight’s Panorama, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said the Duke ‘unequivocally regrets his ill-judged association with Jeffrey Epstein’ and ‘deeply sympathises with those affected who want some form of closure’.
They said ‘it is emphatically denied that The Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts. Any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation’.
The palace has also stated that any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors by the duke was ‘categorically untrue’.
Miss Roberts alleges the duke slept with her on three separate occasions, twice while she was underage.
During his Newsnight interview, the duke said an alleged encounter with Miss Roberts in 2001 did not happen as he spent the day with his daughter, Princess Beatrice, taking her to Pizza Express in Woking for a party.
Jeffrey Epstein and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell are pictured in New York in March 2005
Epstein took his own life in August in a New York prison while he was being held on sex trafficking charges.
The prince has also been plunged into a fresh crisis over claims he abused his taxpayer-funded trade role to benefit an associate.
Leaked papers reveal how he exploited the position to open doors for the tycoon David ‘Spotty’ Rowland while on official trade missions.
Buckingham Palace did not respond to the claims, but said in a statement that the aim of the duke’s trade role ‘was to promote Britain and British interests overseas, not the interests of individuals’.
Panorama: The Prince and the Epstein Scandal will be on BBC One at 9pm tonight
‘She might be close to tears’: Body language expert Judi James says Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Roberts appears both angry and vulnerable in her Panorama interview
The woman who claims she slept with Prince Andrew as a teenager looks both ‘angry’ and ‘vulnerable’ in a new BBC interview, a body language expert said today.
Virginia Roberts has spoken out over claims she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and forced to have sex with Andrew, which the Duke of York categorically denies.
Body language expert Judi James studied three clips which have been released ahead of the long-awaited interview being broadcast on BBC One at 9pm tonight.
Ms James told MailOnline that the new videos ‘show a woman looking firstly repulsed, then angry or indignant, and lastly more vulnerable and pleading’.
But she added that Miss Roberts’s ’emotional displays are largely contained rather than over or incongruent and her vocal tone makes her sound and look assertive’.
Here, she looks at each of the three new clips in detail and gives her assessment:
CLIP ONE — ‘He is the most hideous dancer I’ve ever seen in my life’
VIRGINIA ROBERTS TRANSCRIPT: ‘We went into the VIP section. There was no waiting in the lines obviously – you were with a prince. Andrew asked me what I wanted to drink, you know, and I said oh, you know, something from the bar.
‘He had something clear. I know mine was vodka and then he asked me to dance. He is the most hideous dancer I’ve ever seen in my life.
‘I mean it was horrible and this guy was sweating all over me, like his sweat was like it was raining basically everywhere I was just like grossed out from it but I knew I had to keep him happy because that’s what Jeffrey and Ghislaine would have expected from me.’
ANALYSIS BY JUDI JAMES: ‘Virginia’s eye contact is interesting. She appears to be a keen communicator, sitting upright and seeming to lean slightly towards her interviewer. During the discussion of Andrew’s dancing and sweating she begins with raised brows and strong but not over-performed eye contact.
‘She then looks down and her eyes dart to the right which can be said to be linked to creative thought, but which can also be prompted by someone selecting the right words before speaking.
‘She then performs a prolonged eye cut-off, closing her eyes as she says he is ‘the most hideous dancer’. Cut-offs can be used to conceal the eye expression but that would tend to be more common when someone is answering a direct, ‘killer’ question, whereas here Virginia is creating her own narrative.
‘If she is closing her eyes to internalise her thoughts to recapture the moment or even to try to reject the bad memory, her narrative makes her mouth purse into a small, mirthless laugh.
‘She then perform mime gestures to describe how his sweat was ‘raining down on her’, looking up and splaying her fingers to mimic the ‘raining’ sweat. This comes with a small nose-wrinkle of disgust and she also mimes retching.’
CLIP TWO — ‘He knows what happened. I know what happened’
VIRGINIA ROBERTS TRANSCRIPT: ‘The people on the inside are going to keep coming up with these ridiculous excuses. Like his arm was elongated or the photo was doctored, or uh he came to New York to break up with Jeffrey Epstein.
‘I mean come on, I’m calling BS on this, because that’s what it is. He knows what happened. I know what happened, and there’s only one of us telling the truth, and I know that’s me.’
ANALYSIS BY JUDI JAMES: ‘During the second clip she seems to showing some suppressed anger about the ‘ridiculous excuses’ from what she calls ‘the people inside’.
‘Her body language appears more challenging and defiant here and there is a small neck-wobble as she speaks to suggest some anger, although her vocal tone sounds assertive rather than over-emotional. She raises her index finger in a gesture of what looks like warning gesture.’
CLIP THREE — ‘This is a story of being trafficked’
VIRGINIA ROBERTS TRANSCRIPT: ‘I implore the people in the UK to stand up beside me, to help me fight this fight, to not accept this as being OK.
‘This is not some sordid sex story. This is a story of being trafficked, this is a story of abuse and this is a story of your guys’ royalty.’
ANALYSIS BY JUDI JAMES: ‘In the third clip Virginia looks slightly more vulnerable although – again – this doesn’t seem like something she is over-playing here during these clips.
‘She uses eye contact again to suggest openness as she ‘implores’ the people of the UK to ‘stand up beside me’. Her words sound assertive here but her vocal tone sounds less assured as though she might be close to tears.’