Fallout from Prince Andrew's interview on Jeffrey Epstein: Corporate sponsors drop or put royal's entrepreneurship project on review
- Corporate sponsors of Prince Andrew of Britain's initiative to boost entrepreneurship are reconsidering their relationship with the project on the heels of his new interview about his former friend, Jeffrey Epstein.
- Virginia Giuffre has said Epstein's friend Ghislaine Maxwell, directed her to have sex with Andrew in 2001. Andrew denied that claim.
- Epstein, a former friend of Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, died from what authorities have ruled a suicide while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges.
Corporate sponsors of Prince Andrew of Britain's initiative to boost entrepreneurship are reconsidering their relationship with the project on the heels of a botched television interview about his former friend, sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
The auditing firm KPMG is not renewing its sponsorshop of Andrew's Pitch@Palace and "made the decision following adverse press scrutiny around Prince Andrew," SkyNews reported Monday. KPMG did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
A spokesman for pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca, told CNBC, "Our three year partnership with pitch@palace is due to expire at the end of this year and is currently being reviewed."
The logo of insurance broker Aon, which had been prominently featured on the Pitch@Palace website as a "global partner," is no longer there.
A person familiar with the company said that Aon — before Andrew's recent interview — asked for the removal of its logo, which Aon believed had been prematurely posted. The person said that the company never finalized an agreement to be a sponsor.
The bank Standard Chartered declined to comment to CNBC. Requests for comment from Barclays, Tencent, Hult International Business School, Inmarsat and Bosch Group were not immediately answered.
Andrew, son of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, is just one of a number of high-profile people whose past friendship with Epstein came under renewed scrutiny after the wealthy investor's arrest in July on federal child sex trafficking charges.
Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton were also friends with Epstein before he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting an underage prostitute in Florida.
Andrew, in his interview with BBC Newsnight that aired over the weekend, denied having sex with one of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Giuffre in 2001, and discussed his decision to sever ties with Epstein after his conviction in Florida.
But the interview sparked widespread criticism over Andrew's answers and demeanor, particularly when he pooh-poohed Giuffre's claim that he was "sweating all over me" on a London dance floor around the time of their alleged sexual encounter.
Andrew said he was incapable of sweating in most cases at that time because of an "overdose of adrenaline" as a result of a stress reaction he experienced while being shot at during the Falklands War with Argentina in 1982.
"I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady. None whatsoever," said Andrew, who is also known as the Duke of York.
But there is a photo of a young Giuffre and Andrew together. Both of them are smiling and Andrew has his arm around Giuffre, as the royal's friend, Ghislaine Maxwell, stands behind them.
Giuffre and other Epstein accusers have said Maxwell directed them to have sex with various friends of her former boyfriend and confidant Epstein. Giuffre has said she had sex with Andrew at Maxwell's behest.
Andrew also said that he had spent four nights at Epstein's massive townhouse in Manhattan when he went there to end his friendship with him.
"It was a convenient place to stay," Andew said, when asked why he stayed with Epstein for multiple days, much less for any time at all.
Andrew said that in hindsight, that was "the wrong thing to do."
"I admit fully that my judgment was probably colored by my tendency to be too honorable but that's just the way it is," Andrew said.
Dickie Arbiter, who previously was press officer at Buckingham Palace, said in a tweet that the interview was "not so much a car crash but an articulated lorry crash."
"Lorry" is the British term for truck.
Andrew agreed to the interview on the heels of continued publicity regarding Giuffre's claims that he had sex with her at Maxwell's home in London.
Epstein, 66, died in August from what authorities have ruled was a suicide by hanging while being held in a federal jail in Manhattan.
Epstein had been held in that jail since early July, when he was arrested on sex trafficking charges.
Prosecutors alleged that Epstein had sexually abused dozens of underage girls at his Manhattan residence and in his Palm Beach, Florida, mansion from 2002 through 2005.
Epstein's death remains under investigation. A forensic pathologist hired by Epstein's brother has said that the injuries that caused Epstein's death are more commonly seen in cases of homicide than in suicide.
Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York also are continuing to investigate the allegations that Epstein's crimes were abetted by employees and other associates, who allegedly provided him with a steady stream of young women and girls to satisfy his obsessive sexual cravings.
Last week, the co-executors of Epstein's estate asked a judge in the U.S. Virgin Islands to approve the creation of a compensation fund for his sex abuse victims.
More than a dozen women are now suing Epstein's estate, claiming he abused them. The estate is valued at upward of $570 million.