Prince Andrew settles with Virginia Giuffre, stripped of military titles
Days after a U.S. judge refuses to dismiss Virginia Giuffre's sexual-abuse lawsuit, Prince Andrew is stripped of his military affiliations and royal patronages and reaches an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre — the first formal accountability for a member of Epstein's social circle.
In 2021, Virginia Giuffre sued Prince Andrew in U.S. federal court, alleging that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had trafficked her to the prince when she was 17 and that he sexually abused her on three occasions. Andrew denied the allegations. The suit became the most direct legal threat any member of Epstein’s social orbit had faced outside the criminal cases against Epstein and Maxwell.
The Motion to Dismiss Fails
On January 12, 2022, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan denied Andrew’s motion to dismiss the case. Andrew’s lawyers had argued that a 2009 settlement between Giuffre and Epstein — reportedly worth $500,000 — contained a release that shielded him from suit. Judge Kaplan ruled the language was too ambiguous to specifically protect Andrew and allowed the case to proceed toward discovery, raising the prospect that the prince would be deposed under oath.
Titles Stripped
The ruling triggered an immediate response from Buckingham Palace. On January 13, 2022 — one day later — Queen Elizabeth II, with the royal family’s “approval and agreement,” stripped Andrew of his military affiliations and royal patronages. He stopped being styled “His Royal Highness” in any official capacity and was required to defend the lawsuit as a private citizen rather than as a working royal. It was an extraordinary public repudiation of the Queen’s second son.
The Settlement
On February 15, 2022, Andrew and Giuffre reached an out-of-court settlement. The terms were not disclosed, though the agreement was widely reported to involve a substantial payment along with a donation to Giuffre’s victims’-rights charity. Andrew admitted no liability, but the settlement statement acknowledged that Giuffre had “suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks” and noted that the prince “regrets his association with Epstein.”
The settlement spared Andrew a deposition and a trial, but it did not end the matter. Public and parliamentary pressure over his Epstein ties continued to build, culminating years later in the loss of his princely title in 2025 and, in February 2026, his arrest. Giuffre, who had forced the most powerful accountability yet from inside Epstein’s circle, would not live to see those developments; she died in April 2025.