Prince Andrew Struggles with Questions About Epstein in Bizarre New Interview

The death of Jeffrey Epstein in a Manhattan jail cell has fueled an inexhaustible stream of conspiracy theories. That's partly because the accused sex trafficker died under such suspicious circumstances, and partly because he had ties to many rich and powerful people. Epstein's circle included Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, as well as Prince Andrew, the second son of Britain's Queen Elizabeth.

The relationship dogged Prince Andrew even before Epstein was arrested, for the second time, this past summer on charges of trafficking underage girls. And he's been more under the microscope since then, especially after one of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, claimed that Prince Andrew had sex with her numerous times when she was only 17 years old.

In a bizarre attempt to clear his name, Prince Andrew sat down for a nearly hour-long interview with the BBC's Emily Maitlis this weekend. Bizarre, because he agreed to do the interview nearly four months after Epstein's death, and rather than smother the controversy, his responses to Maitlis's questions were outlandish and flimsy. His publicist reportedly quit over Prince Andrew's decision to sit down for an interview.

Giuffre claimed, for example, that Prince Andrew became extremely sweaty while dancing with her once in 2001 before they had sex. The prince claims this is impossible because he didn't have the ability to sweat at that time since he suffered an "overdose of adrenaline" during the Falkland War. (A health expert told the British paper Daily Express that this doesn't make sense, as an adrenaline overdose would likely cause more sweating, not less.)

Prince Andrew also denied that he could have been with Giuffre during one of the dates she claimed, because he had taken his daughter out for pizza that day. He explained that he remembers that so specifically because "going to Pizza Express in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do." Despite these very precise answers, he had no explanation for a photo of him, Giuffre, and Epstein's former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, taken at a house in London.

Prince Andrew also claimed that he visited Epstein in Manhattan in 2010, three years after Epstein was put on a sex-offender registry, to "break up the friendship." After that breakup supposedly took place, though, Prince Andrew remained at Epstein's home for several days because it was a "convenient place to stay," as if the Duke of York couldn't book a hotel room in New York. He told Maitlis he only did so due to his "tendency to be too honorable."

Public relations consultant Mark Borkowski told The Washington Post that, like many of Prince Andrew's answers, this strains credulity. "How do you spend four days in America killing a friendship? Everybody has fallen out with a friend. Do they spend four days in a luxury flat? This is what you have to think about when you are preparing people for interviews: Does it pass the common-sense test? And it doesn’t."

Beyond Prince Andrew's eyebrow-raising explanations, his tone and demeanor seemed oddly disconnected from the severity of Epstein's years-long sex-trafficking operation. One exchange between him and Maitlis:

Prince Andrew: “Do I regret the fact that he has quite obviously conducted himself in a manner unbecoming? Yes.”

Maitlis: “Unbecoming? He was a sex offender.”

Prince Andrew: “Yeah, I’m sorry, I’m being polite.”

Later, Prince Andrew expressed regret that he continued to socialize with Epstein for years after Epstein became a registered sex offender: "I kick myself for [that] on a daily basis because it was not something that was becoming of a member of the Royal Family and we try and uphold the highest standards and practices and I let the side down, simple as that."

That "because" is telling. Prince Andrew doesn't say he's remorseful because it empowered a man who was running an international sex-trafficking network, giving him legitimacy and connections to abuse young women. He regrets it because fraternizing with credibly accused sex offenders doesn't meet "the highest standard" of a member of the Royal Family. Either way, it seems like a pretty low bar.

A Navy seal, a popular podcaster, and an ABC hot mic might explain it.

Originally Appeared on GQ