Prince Andrew’s former girlfriend Victoria Hervey was cut off during an interview on British television after accusing Virginia Giuffre of being a “con artist”.
Good Morning Britain host Susanna Reid stepped in to stop the live broadcast after Ms Hervey made a series of derogatory remarks about Ms Giuffre, who received a multi-million dollar payout from the disgraced royal to settle a civil sexual assault lawsuit last year.
Andrew did not admit guilt in the settlement and has strongly denied allegations that he sexually abused Ms Giuffre in previous interviews.
Ms Hervey, who dated Andrew briefly in the 1990s, appeared on the ITV morning talk show to debate whether the Duke of York would be able to rehabilitate his image through charity work and return to public life after being besieged with controversy over his ties to the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
She accused Ms Giuffre of being a “liar”, and falsely claimed that victims of Epstein’s decades-long sex trafficking operation had “made it up”.
The discussion became tense when Ms Hervey interrupted fellow panelist Dr Charlotte Proudman to claim that Andrew had never even met Ms Giuffre.
Ms Hervey, 46, then said that charities would want to work with Andrew because “there's a lot of stuff coming out about her that she is a complete con artist”.
“Can we do a bet live on air that I’m right?”
Dr Proudman, a lawyer and gender equality campaigner, hit back, saying: “I think it is absolutely perverse to suggest that the role of charities is to rehabilitate the image of someone accused of sex trafficking.”
As Ms Hervey denied there was any link between Andrew and sex trafficking, Ms Reid stepped in to point out that Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted and is serving time in a US prison for those same crimes.
Ms Hervey then claimed that: “A lot of these girls are liars, a lot of these girls made it up.”
The Good Morning Britain host then said she was ending the interview, adding: “You cannot smear victims of sex trafficking who have already been through hell.”
Prince Andrew is reportedly looking at trying to overturn the settlement with Ms Giuffre, struck in February last year.
Maxwell is serving a 20 year prison term after being convicted of sex trafficking and abusing four young girls with Epstein, who died while awaiting trial in 2019.
