‘Virginia Roberts Giuffre Was an American Hero’

Amy Wallace spent four years collaborating with Virginia Roberts Giuffre on her memoir, Nobody’s Girl, which has had a far-reaching impact in the fight for justice for the victims and survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse. Stephen Colegrave corresponded with the US-based writer and journalist about the book and the extraordinary woman behind it

SC: Nobody’s Girl, published six months after Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s death, not only details her experience of being sexually abused and trafficked as a teenager by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, but also a two-decade-long struggle to hold them to account. Her work to expose these abuses has ultimately led to the stripping of the royal titles from King Charles’ younger brother Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. How did you get the opportunity to ghostwrite (if, indeed, you are happy with that term) this book?

I’m happy with the term – I have been using it myself. At the beginning of the book, there is a preface I wrote called ‘A Note from Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s Collaborator’. Either works for me. I was recommended by the former Editor-in-Chief of Esquire, David Granger. I had written freelance pieces for him. He is now an agent at Aevitas Creative, and another agent – one of the founders of the firm – is Virginia’s agent.

I met with Virginia, her agent, and her publicist over Zoom. They then asked for a few samples of my magazine work to read (the previous books I had co-authored had been leadership books, with male executives). I sent them two pieces that I hoped would showcase my ability to tackle tough emotional terrain sensitively. I am not sure what tipped the scales in my favour, but soon, Virginia and I were hard at work.

Did you have any qualms about taking on this assignment?

No. I had seen the Netflix series Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich about Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s trafficking ring. I was impressed by all the survivors who appeared on camera, but had been particularly struck by Virginia. I felt her story was an important one. I had no hesitation at all.

What was your impression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre when you first met her?

The first time I met her in person, Virginia Roberts Giuffre – one of the strongest and most determined people I have ever known – confided that she wished she felt stronger.

For nearly two months, we had been talking on Zoom about the memoir she wanted help writing. Now it was June 2021, and she had asked me to meet her in Paris, where she had travelled to help prosecutors keep one of Jeffrey Epstein’s closest associates, Jean-Luc Brunel, in prison.

The day I arrived, she told me that she had just taken herself to the Musée du Louvre – “I am a huge art history nerd,” she said – but that a panic attack had forced her to flee after just a few minutes.

Twenty years earlier, when she was a teenager, she had visited that same museum flanked by two of the world’s most notorious traffickers of underage girls – Epstein and Maxwell. So the previous day, when she had walked into one of the Louvre’s tapestry-filled rooms, she had felt suddenly dizzy – “like I was in a room with ghosts” – and had run for the exits, she told me. “But I am mad at myself for chickening out.”

That is why, two days later, after Virginia did her part in testifying about Brunel’s repugnant abuse of herself and others, we returned to the Louvre. First, we headed to face-down the tapestries (“I am taking this room back,” she said). And then we meandered through the museum together, visiting the bronze and marble sculptures, saying hi to the Mona Lisa, and generally reclaiming for her that whole gorgeous place.

The process of writing her new book was a similarly conscious act of reclamation – of Virginia’s story and her life. Her book begins, after a brief preface written by me, with Virginia recounting that 2021 trip to Paris and why it mattered.

She took her own life this past April, at the age of 41. But I know she would have been so proud to see how her voice, her legacy, and her testimony have once again focused attention on one of the darkest corners of our culture. This story is not just about Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell or Andrew Mountbatten Windsor or all the other men Virginia was trafficked to. It is about misogyny and the fetishisation of young girls.

Its author was a fierce, generous woman who came from nothing, who suffered terrible abuse, and then valiantly escaped, became a mother and a wife, and ultimately opted to become an advocate for others. That decision made her subject to more attacks, but she kept on speaking out. She wanted to make the world better, safer, fairer, and more just – for all of us.

It was my honour to work with her and, in recent days, it has been a privilege to stand up for her, as best I can, as her important book helps make history.

For more than a decade, Virginia and so many other brave women have told the FBI and other law enforcement what was done to them by Epstein, Maxwell, and the cabal of men who were their friends, acquaintances, and business partners. It is past time for the US Department of Justice to do its job. Release the Epstein Files.

‘Even as the heaviness of what she had experienced threatened to engulf us at times, Virginia and I were determined that her book show she also had lightness in her life’

What was it like working with Virginia?

Sometimes we were laughing, other times we were crying.

We started with her early childhood, before any abuse began, because I wanted to understand what had forged her resilience and strength. There had been a period when she was a cherished little girl. It was important, we felt, to paint a picture of that before the terrible abuse began.

Even as the heaviness of what she had experienced threatened to engulf us at times, Virginia and I were determined that her book show she also had lightness in her life. Smart, funny, and huge-hearted, she had worked hard to cultivate simple pleasures.

I visited her twice in Western Australia, staying in her family’s guestroom for almost a whole month, eating meals with them, and basically tagging along as they lived their daily lives.

It was there that I got a window into her love of music, of her many animals, and – most of all – of her three children. I witnessed the family’s dinner-time rituals (to win the prime seat, the kids raced to call “shotgun”), heard the songs she sang off-key as she drove them to school, and was a fly on the wall when Virginia – who I called Jenna, as those closest to her did – took her 12-year-old daughter clothes shopping (these are all scenes that readers of the book will recognise).

There was so much humour and tenderness between Virginia and her kids. Perhaps this was her biggest act of reclamation: she had built her own family and tried, whenever she could, to seize joy.

As you were both writing the book, did you and Virginia have a sense of the seminal impact it would have?

I hoped, as Virginia did, that it would accomplish her primary goal of giving comfort to other victims of sexual abuse, male or female. From the scores of emails and Facebook messages I have received in the past three weeks, I would say that Virginia has completely succeeded on that front. But I had no premonition of the amazing extent [to which] the book would capture the public’s attention more broadly. I hoped it would.

We need to be paying more attention – all of us, not just those who have been victimised by predators – to the systems that allow this to happen. To the misogyny that runs like an underground river through our culture. To the fetishisation and sexualisation of young girls. Virginia and I hoped the book would shine a light on all that and would make people angry. Because only that will begin to change things.

The last paragraph of the book tells you what Virginia thought “success” would be, in that it sketches out the world she hopes is possible. “If this book moves us even an inch closer to a reality like that – if it helps just one person – I will have achieved my goal,” she writes. I know from what readers are telling me that she has achieved that goal, and then some.

How did you feel about the responsibility of making Virginia’s intentions heard and speaking on her behalf following her death? It must have been something you had never expected to have to do.

It was not what I expected. Ghostwriters are meant to be invisible. Before Virginia died, my name was going to be mentioned merely in the ‘acknowledgements’ section of the book, and Virginia herself was going to be interviewed as her book launched. To me, that was as it should be. But after her death, it became clear that someone needed to speak for the book, and that I was the only person left who knew what it had demanded of her to finish it.

I wanted to stand up for her, even though I knew the trolls would come out to malign her (and me), as they have. There are currently a couple of weird Facebook posts going around that feature my photo and that say I have been in a car accident and am at death’s door. Very creepy. And that is just one example.

Once the book came out, it was like a hurricane of media interest.

I am not sure I was completely surprised – media outlets are competitive with one another, and once one has something, often others want their piece too. But what did surprise me was how long Virginia and her book dominated the news cycles.

And then, of course, when King Charles stripped his brother of the prince title, well, that is when the hurricane made landfall. It was incredible.

How do you feel about the Royal Family’s response to the continuing revelations about Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s actions and his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein? Has it been too little, too late – especially in terms of acknowledging the victims and survivors?

I understand the criticisms of the Royal Family’s statement [announcing that Andrew would lose his royal title of ‘prince’] – that it was not specific enough about naming Epstein and Maxwell’s trafficking ring, that it was too little, too late. I agree that the Royal Family could and should have slapped down Andrew way earlier, and I wish they had because then Virginia would have been alive to see it. But I also want to give credit where credit is due.

This was a huge thing that King Charles did – to not merely make crystal clear that his sentiments lie with the victims, but also to have the moral certitude to punish his own brother. Yes, I know that Andrew is not (yet) in jail or living in poverty. But King Charles’ willingness to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable is something that deserves to be lauded.

I only wish leaders on my side of the pond would begin to do the same thing.

You have used your prominent media appearances on behalf of Virginia to call for Andrew to provide information about Epstein.

Yes, because he said (or at least paid spokesmen for him said) at one point that he was happy to help investigators in the US. Then he never did it. I wanted to put it to him – the father of two daughters: it is not too late for you to validate the experience of these women who have bravely come forward again and again, only to face slut-shaming and denigration. You were in the mansions, on the island, on the jets. You saw things. Even if you refuse to admit what Virginia says you did to her (rape and battery), you could still talk about who you saw being led into the cabanas or the massage rooms. You could say: these women are not liars.

Do you believe King Charles should force Andrew to testify to the FBI and US Senate, particularly as they would most likely allow him to do so from his home in the UK?

I would love that. In the US, we need all the help we can get to force a reckoning. This is not just about Andrew. This is about a lot of entitled men who committed crimes and are still walking around free right now. The Department of Justice and the FBI have been investigating – off and on – for more than a dozen years. If Andrew would offer up his memories of this reprehensible world, that could apply pressure here in America.

Has this experience changed how you feel about British royalty and the establishment?

I think it shows that even the powerful can be forced – by the weight of public opinion – to do things they might not otherwise do. So I guess I would say it has affirmed my belief in the citizens of the UK – speaking up about what they found unacceptable in their monarchy.

How has this journey made you evaluate the role of a ghostwriter?

The ghostwriting job is an unusual one that is mysterious to many, I think. It involves getting to know your subject incredibly deeply, writing in their voice, facilitating their storytelling, and corroborating and interrogating their narrative so as not to make any mistakes.

It is part investigative, part empathetic. For sure, it is not for everyone. Usually, it is pretty selfless.

But when I was a magazine writer, I mostly wrote profiles, and I always tried my damnedest to paint an accurate portrait of my subjects. Ghostwriting is that job on steroids, with a lot more access.

It is a privilege to do that with people who want to tell the truth and who are clear about what they want their books to achieve. Virginia ticked both those boxes. I admired her – I still admire her. As her family has said, she was an ordinary girl with extraordinary courage.

To me, she was an American hero who fought to make the world a better, safer place for all of us. It was truly an honour to fight alongside her for four years.

Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice by Virginia Roberts Giuffre is published by Doubleday