April 26 (UPI) — Virginia Giuffre, who was the victim of sexual exploitation at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and also accused Britain’s Prince Andrew of underage abuse, has died by suicide, her family confirmed.
“She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking,” Guiffre’s family said in a statement, confirming first responders found the 41-year-old unresponsive at her home near Perth in Western Australia Friday night.
Giuffre, who was born Virginia Roberts, had three children, two sons and a daughter.
In late March, Giuffre said she had only days to live after she was involved in a vehicle collision with a bus. She said her body had gone into kidney failure following the incident.
Days later, police called the collision “minor” while the bus driver involved said Giuffre’s account was “blown out of proportion.”
Giuffre’s last Instagram post is a photo of her, seemingly with bruising.
Born in California, Giuffre and her family moved to Florida when she was a child. She later began working at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, owned by President Donald Trump, where she met Epstein’s then-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
It was Maxwell, Giuffre alleged, who facilitated the meetings between her and Epstein that led to sexual abuse while she was a minor.
Epstein died of a suspected suicide in August 2019 in a Manhattan Correctional Center cell where he was being held awaiting trial on federal on sex trafficking charges.
Giuffre in 2019 publicly accused Epstein of forcing her to engage in sex with his friends at the age of 17, including Prince Andrew, who she met in 2001 and was in his 40s at the time.
Andrew, the younger brother of Britain’s King Charles III, has denied any wrongdoing but in 2022 settled a lawsuit brought on by Giuffre for an undisclosed amount.
“Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors,” her family said in the statement, following her death.
