Amy Wallace, the co-writer of Virginia Giuffre’s posthumously published memoir, says the story isn’t just about one powerful man or even one scandal. It is, in her words, about a system—one that fetishizes young girls, rewards silence, and punishes those who dare to speak. In a wide-ranging conversation with ITV News, Wallace said she has “no doubt” about the claims Giuffre makes in the book, including those involving Prince Andrew—allegations the prince has consistently and vigorously denied. That tension—between denial and allegation, between public reputation and private testimony—now sits at the center of a case that continues to raise questions far beyond any single name.
Wallace describes an investigative process that stretched over years, with interviews, corroborating sources, and professional fact-checking applied to Giuffre’s account. She recounts how Giuffre’s legal team used photo arrays—mixing well-known figures who had no connection to Jeffrey Epstein with those who did—to test memory and identification. “She never made a mistake,” Wallace says. The methodology, she argues, matters: details that might blur over time for many remained clear for a woman who, she says, remembered faces in moments of trauma with a precision that surprised even seasoned investigators.
Prince Andrew has denied knowing Giuffre and has denied all allegations of abuse. Wallace acknowledges those denials, emphasizing that the memoir presents Giuffre’s own account—one vetted and tested, but still her account—and that contested claims are presented as such. Still, Wallace’s appeal to the prince is practical. “He was in the houses. He was on the jets. He was on the island,” she says, urging him to come forward and help investigators even if he maintains his innocence. Cooperation, she argues, could be a step toward broader accountability. That path remains open, she says, noting Andrew once suggested he might assist, only for that offer to fade without follow-through.
The book arrives six months after Giuffre’s death, a timing that has lent the project both gravity and urgency. Wallace says Giuffre approved the final manuscript, the title, and the cover before the holidays last year, and sent an email weeks before her death insisting the memoir be published even in her absence. Wallace includes that email in a preface explaining what happened between the book’s completion and its release—an attempt to provide transparency and respect the author’s intent. Giuffre’s purpose, Wallace says, was consistent from the start: to help survivors feel less alone. “If only one person feels less alone, it will be a success,” Giuffre wrote. For Wallace, that is the measure to watch now that the book is in readers’ hands.
The memoir, Wallace stresses, isn’t just about British royalty. It chronicles a pipeline of recruitment and coercion, a playbook of grooming that leveraged class, vulnerability, and aspiration. Giuffre writes about being approached at Mar-a-Lago, where she worked at the spa and where her father was employed, by a woman she would later identify as Ghislaine Maxwell. Wallace says Maxwell’s role, in Giuffre’s telling, was not administrative; it was active. “She was not a receptionist,” Wallace says. “She was a sexual abuser herself.” Maxwell, she argues, used her gender and social polish to disarm teenage girls who might otherwise have recoiled from an older man’s advances. Once they stepped through the door, Wallace says, “there was a whole different person there.”
The book names some figures and withholds others. That decision, Wallace says, was deliberate and born of safety concerns, legal risk, and the toll years of depositions and litigation take on a survivor and her family. She says Giuffre provided names to law enforcement, and that investigators thanked multiple women for coming forward. “It’s not Virginia’s job, it’s not the book’s job, and it’s not my job to publish a list,” Wallace says, pointing instead to calls for the release of the Epstein files. Her understanding, she says, is that federal authorities have the names Giuffre could provide. Why there hasn’t been more visible action, she adds, is a question without a satisfying public answer.
Wallace is careful to distinguish what Giuffre alleges from broader speculation. For example, she says Giuffre did not report seeing Donald Trump involved in trafficking or being provided girls during the period she was in Epstein’s orbit, nor was she trafficked to him. Wallace notes Giuffre had positive personal impressions of Trump from her Mar-a-Lago job and supported his campaign pledge to release the Epstein files, a promise Wallace says resonated with survivors desperate for validation. That context, she suggests, is crucial to avoid sweeping generalizations and to keep the focus on evidence.
The royal family’s response remains part of the public conversation. Prince Andrew has lost military affiliations and patronages and stepped back from public duties. Wallace calls those actions “a step in the right direction,” reflecting a moment when someone told him “enough is enough,” but she frames that as only a step. She doesn’t speculate on whether additional titles could or should be removed, acknowledging questions of protocol while returning to the central point: meaningful accountability goes beyond symbolism. If Andrew maintains he did nothing wrong, she says, he can still help authorities by sharing what he witnessed in Epstein’s orbit.
Underlying the case, Wallace argues, is a wider culture that too often doubts women, stigmatizes survivors, and excuses predatory behavior when power and wealth are involved. She points to the strategic targeting of poorer high schools in Palm Beach, where recruiters sought girls with fewer resources. That, she says, was not an accident; it was the plan. The result is a story that isn’t only about individuals, but about class, misogyny, and the normalization of exploitation. “Anyone who thinks the fetishization of young girls died with Jeffrey Epstein is sadly mistaken,” Wallace says. She calls the memoir a map of the predator’s playbook—one parents and communities can use to recognize grooming tactics that begin with flattery and opportunity and end with control and silence.
For readers wary of sensationalism or misinformation, Wallace’s approach—and the book’s—leans on clarity. Claims that are contested are presented as allegations; denials are noted; and documentation, interviews, and fact-checking are described as part of the process. That, she suggests, is how you keep a story compelling without letting it drift into rumor. You say what you know and how you know it. You acknowledge what you don’t. You let the humanity of the subject—the fear, the shame, the determination—come through without dramatizing or inventing. In a media environment where audiences are quick to flag anything that feels exaggerated or false, that discipline is not just ethical; it’s strategic. It keeps the detection of “fake” low because it earns trust, line by line.
Wallace is candid about the costs survivors pay. Giuffre endured threats, Wallace says, including one the FBI told her was credible, sending her family into the Australian outback for weeks. She faced the grueling repetition of depositions, the prying into therapy notes and health records, and the public doubts that persist even as institutions recalibrate in the wake of MeToo. The memoir, in part, was her way of reclaiming her time and voice—putting her story between covers so that she could point to it instead of reliving it on demand. She hoped to move forward, Wallace says, to live as a full-time advocate rather than as a permanent witness to her own trauma.
Now, in her absence, that advocacy falls to others—her family, her co-writer, and readers who will find in the pages not just names and dates, but an ecosystem that allowed abuse to flourish. Wallace doesn’t pretend the book will solve what she calls a long-standing cultural sickness. But she believes it can shift the conversation, widen it, and insist on accountability where it has been delayed. If there is a clear call to action, it is to law enforcement to do its work, to public figures to cooperate, and to the public to recognize grooming and exploitation for what they are, regardless of the status of the men involved.
The allegation and the denial will continue to collide in headlines. What cannot be so easily dismissed is the lived experience described in the book and the rigor Wallace says went into recording it. That combination—transparent sourcing, careful language, and a survivor-centered narrative—keeps the story powerful without crossing the line into sensationalism. It aims to hold attention and earn trust at the same time, honoring the standard Giuffre set in her final request: publish the truth, and help someone feel less alone.