Queen Elizabeth Reportedly Paid £9 Million Toward Prince Andrew's Virginia Giuffre Settlement

The late Queen Elizabeth II reportedly contributed more than £9 million towards her son Prince Andrew's out-of-court settlement with sexual abuse accuser Virginia Giuffre in 2022, according to reporting by The Sun. A new royal biography claims the monarch spent her final years privately troubled by Andrew's association with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, yet ultimately refused to believe he had done anything wrong.

Giuffre filed a civil lawsuit against Andrew, now 66, in 2021, alleging he had sexually assaulted her on three separate occasions when she was 17 years old, after being trafficked by Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Andrew has consistently and categorically denied every allegation.

The case was settled out of court in February 2022 for an undisclosed sum, widely reported to be around £12 million. The agreement came just months before the Queen's death in September that year.

What the New Book Claims About Queen Elizabeth and Andrew

The biography Queen Elizabeth II, written by royal historian Hugo Vickers and due for release in April, offers an unusually candid account of the monarch's private anguish over her second son's spiralling reputation. 'Andrew's problems caused the queen considerable distress in the last years of her life,' Vickers writes.

'She was deeply concerned about his future. One idea, developed in the last year of her life, was to set up a foundation that Andrew could administer.'

What is striking, and more than a little uncomfortable in hindsight, is Vickers' assertion that despite the volume of public evidence and global scrutiny, the queen did not believe Andrew had acted wrongly. 'Despite his car-crash interview on Newsnight, and other apparent revelations, the queen did not believe he had behaved improperly,' Vickers writes. 'It is fortunate that she did not live to witness the denouement.'

That Newsnight interview, in which Andrew sat down with BBC presenter Emily Maitlis in 2019, is widely regarded as one of the most catastrophic television appearances by a senior royal in modern memory. Andrew not only denied knowing Giuffre, but also challenged the authenticity of a photograph showing him with his arm around her, taken in 2001, suggesting it may have been doctored. Few were persuaded. The interview prompted his withdrawal from royal duties within days.

The queen's refusal to accept the substance of the allegations reflected, by Vickers' account, a mixture of maternal certainty and genuine uncertainty about what had actually occurred. She reportedly allowed Andrew to accompany her as her escort at the memorial service for Prince Philip at Westminster Abbey in March 2022, a gesture widely read as a public expression of support at the height of the scandal.

The Financial Questions Behind the Settlement

The question of who actually paid for the settlement has never been officially resolved. According to The Sun, the queen reportedly loaned Andrew more than £9 million towards the settlement, with a further £4 million drawn from Prince Philip's estate in the year following his death in 2021.

Reports at the time also placed then-Prince Charles as contributing approximately £2 million. The total settlement figure, never officially confirmed, has been widely estimated at around £12 million.

What appears harder to dispute, based on sourcing cited by The Sun, is that Andrew has yet to repay any of those loans to his family. 'Andrew's not paid back a penny,' a source told the outlet in February.

'The money from the royal family bought her silence but denied Virginia her day in court and the chance to openly challenge his account of what happened.' Neither Andrew's representatives nor Buckingham Palace have publicly responded to the claim.

There is a final, irreducible sadness running through the story. Virginia Giuffre, who spent years seeking accountability for what she said was done to her as a teenager, died by suicide on 25 April 2025 at her farm in Western Australia. She was 41.

Her family confirmed she had 'lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking.' Her posthumous memoir, Nobody's Girl, was published the following October.

Andrew has made no public statement in response to the claims in Vickers' book.