The memoir "Nobody's girl" is published just under half a year after Virginia Giuffre took her life, according to her family after being a "lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking".
In the book, Giuffre describes three separate occasions when she was allegedly sexually exploited by Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth's second eldest son. For the first time, in London when she was 17, she says she received $15,000 from the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The third time is said to have been during an "orgy" on Epstein's private island.
Prince Andrew's friendship with Epstein has been discussed for over a decade. But in recent weeks, the pressure on the royal family has increased, and last week the prince chose to stop using the title Duke of York.
Knew her age
If Buckingham Palace believed that the measure would draw a line under the scandal, they were wrong, note British media.
Now, demands are growing for the government to also formally strip him of his royal titles, reports Sky News - something that Downing Street is believed to be reluctant to do without King Charles' direct approval.
At the same time, questions are piling up about how much the royal family actually knew - and whether they should have acted much earlier, writes BBC.
Virginia Giuffre says she was introduced to Prince Andrew by Ghislaine Maxwell in 2001, who in 2022 was sentenced to 20 years in prison for human trafficking and other crimes committed together with Epstein.
Giuffre was then 17, Prince Andrew 41. At the first meeting, he guessed her age correctly, Giuffre writes in the book, explaining that "my daughters are just a little younger than you".
"Die as a sex slave"
About the abuse on Epstein's island, Giuffre writes that "Epstein, Andy (Prince Andrew), approximately eight other young girls and I had sex".
"All the other girls seemed to be under 18 and did not speak English directly. Epstein laughed at the fact that they could not communicate and said that they were the easiest kind of girls to get along with."
After the "orgy", she bled irregularly and felt unwell. Giuffre writes that she feared she would "die as a sex slave" in the hands of Epstein and his inner circle. Epstein is described as particularly brutal, as well as a "well-known", unnamed former prime minister.
In 2021, Virginia Giuffre sued Prince Andrew for sexual abuse in a civil case, which ended with an out-of-court settlement. According to The Daily Telegraph, the prince may have paid as much as 12 million pounds, equivalent to around 155 million kronor, to Giuffre.
An investigation into businessman Jeffrey Epstein was launched in 2005, after a 14-year-old girl told police that she had been molested by him in his home in Palm Beach, Florida. The investigation grew, and in 2007, he was charged in a federal court.
After an agreement with the prosecutor, Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in prison for buying sex in 2008. He was released after 13 months.
The case was highlighted again in 2018 after a series of articles in the Miami Herald, where several women came forward and accused Epstein of sexual abuse during the period 2001-2005.
In July 2019, Epstein was arrested at an airport in New Jersey. The new indictment against him concerned abuse of dozens of underage girls between 2002 and 2005. According to the prosecution, Epstein had tried to buy the silence of witnesses for millions. Epstein denied the crimes.
On August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein was found lifeless in his cell in the jail on Manhattan. He was taken to the hospital where he was declared dead.
A prominent plaintiff against Epstein was Virginia Giuffre, who died in April this year. She claimed that Epstein's convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell discovered her at the spa facility at Donald Trump's club and residence Mar-a-Lago in Florida when she was 17 and hired her as Epstein's masseuse - his "sex slave" - and then lent her to a number of men who abused her.
