“Today our broken hearts have lifted at the news that no one is above the law, not even royalty”- Virginia Giuffre’s family

How many little girls grew up believing “One day my Prince will come?”

It’s very likely a young Virginia Guiffre did. The handsome Prince Charming, destined to save her, this poor, sexually abused little girl, whisking her away to live happily ever after.

Virginia Guiffre wrote in her memoir, Nobody’s Girl, that on the day she met Prince Andrew in 2001, Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell told her, “just like Cinderella, I was going to meet a handsome prince.”

There was, however, nothing charming about that particular Prince, a prince once known as Randy Andy.

In this fractured fairy tale, no one lived happily ever after.

Far from a gilded palace, that Prince Charming just spent time in a jail cell.

The rapist, formerly known as Prince Andrew, has been arrested.  Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, brother to the King, was taken into custody on charges of suspicion of misconduct in public office in connection with his association with Jeffrey Epstein. Or as the British press called “his pedo-mate.”

Fairy Tales Don’t Come True

Maxwell lured Virginia in with the mythical words “Prince.”

The title “Prince” is intrinsically linked with fairy tales. Each of us has a favorite bedtime story from childhood that we heard over and over that remains deep in our memory bank.

A prince is the idealized man some women dream of as a future husband. One of the most repeated is Sleeping Beauty, the prince charming destined to save her, the kiss that awakens Sleeping Beauty to live happily ever after.

Being Prince Charming is now thick with irony here as the hero and rescuer of damsels in distress. In Sleeping Beauty, he is the hero who kisses an unconscious underage gir,l and in Snow White and Cinderella, he liberates young women from evil.

Fairy tale movies of the princess meeting her prince and falling in “love at first sight” and being “swept off her feet” can blind us to the reality of the tactics of abusers seeking out victims. It’s called ‘grooming.’

Virginia’s ‘Prince Charming’  was actually a toad grooming her to be his next victim.

She never lived to see this moment, but we wouldn’t be here without Virginia Guiffre’s bravery. She lit the match. And we believed you.

Now the once-upon-a-time Prince is the damsel in distress, and hopefully no one will come to his rescue.

Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, younger brother of Britain’s King Charles, formerly known as Prince Andrew, leaves Aylsham Police Station on a vehicle, on the day he was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, after the U.S. Justice Department released more records tied to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in Aylsham, Britain, February 19, 2026. REUTERS/Phil Noble TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY