By Syan Vallance, ABC
Composite image showing Jeffrey Epstein, the former prince Andrew and an unidentified woman.
Photo: Getty / Davidoff Studios Photography / US DOJ / supplied
King Charles braved the British weather and a storm of controversy during his first public appearance since the latest release of Epstein files.
Despite his umbrella and a police cordon, he couldn’t entirely avoid either one. One heckler shouted from the crowd: “Charles, Charles, have you pressurised the police to start investigating Andrew?”
Police swiftly moved the man on, but royal historian and author Andrew Lownie believes the demand for answers will only grow louder.
“I think the question is, what do they know? When did they know? What did they do then? And what are they going to do now?” Mr Lownie said.
The link between Epstein and the King’s younger brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, has caused years of scandal, and now it is not just the British royals in crisis mode.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Photo: AFP / JORDAN PETTITT
The latest release of Epstein files contained mentions of monarchies across Europe and the Middle East.
“It’s a much bigger network than I think people realised, you know, with tentacles stretching across the world,” Mr Lownie said.
While appearances in the files do not indicate wrongdoing, they have brought scrutiny upon the world’s wealthy and powerful.
‘You always tickle my brain’
In Norway, a corruption investigation is now underway into a former prime minister, and the nation’s future queen has been forced into a public apology.
Crown Princess Mette-Marit was first linked to Epstein in 2019, but new documents seem to reveal a much closer friendship than previously reported.
Emails between the princess and the paedophile reveal a warm relationship between 2011 and 2014, well after his release from prison in 2009 for child sex offences.
Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway.
Photo: JOHN MACDOUGALL
In one 2012 email from H.K.H Kronprinsessen – Norwegian for H.R.H. (Her Royal Highness) Crown Princess – she called the sex offender a “sweetheart”.
In another, she wrote: “You always make me smile … because you tickle my brain.”
There are regular plans to meet together, and a series of emails indicate she stayed at his house in Palm Beach, Florida, in January 2013.
Epstein was not there during the visit, but it appears he facilitated a visit to his dentist for the future queen’s teeth bleaching.
“It is simply embarrassing,” the princess said in a statement issued by the royal palace.
“I showed poor judgement and I deeply regret having had any contact with Epstein.”
It is the second time she has issued a public apology over her links to Epstein.
In 2019, she told Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv she “never would have associated with Mr Epstein if I had been aware of the seriousness of the crimes he committed. I should have investigated his past more thoroughly, and I am sorry that I didn’t.”
The latest tranche of Epstein documents were released by the US Department of Justice last week. In those, the crown princess tells Epstein in a 2011 email she had googled him, and “it didn’t look good :)”.
In another email from 2013 she asks Epstein: “Anyway are you coming over to see me soon??? I miss my crazy friend.”
Sweden’s royal family named in files
Sweden’s Princess Sofia is another royal who appears in the latest tranche of files.
Long before she married Swedish Prince Carl Philip, the then-aspiring actress was introduced to Epstein in 2005 through her mentor, businesswoman Barbro Ehnbom.
The Swedish Royal Court has previously said Princess Sofia met Epstein a handful of times before his 2008 conviction, but she declined an invitation to his island and had not been in contact with him for 20 years.
Sweden’s Princess Sofia.
Photo: AFP/CHRISTINE OLSSON
But it appears Ms Ehnbom, who ran a networking group and scholarships for young women, continued to contact Epstein about her.
In February 2010, she emailed a photo of Sofia to Epstein. It was not clear if Sofia knew the photograph had been taken or sent.
The context of her appearance in the files have led some commentators to compare her experience with victims, rather than accomplices.
Saudi royal adviser’s crude texts
The files also reveal consistent contact between Epstein and Raafat Al-Sabbagh, an adviser to Saudi Arabia’s royal court, and associate of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Most communication between the pair was sent between 2016 and 2017.
The texts and emails include crude exchanges, political commentary and business advice.
“I am sure you are opening so many legs there,” Al-Sabbagh said in one message sent in 2016 to Epstein, who was at his Palm Beach home at the time.
Epstein reportedly displayed a photo of himself with Prince Mohammed on a sideboard in his New York residence.
The Saudi government’s Centre for International Communication did not respond to the ABC’s request for comment.
The exposure of Epstein’s deep ties to multiple monarchies has shaken each institution’s carefully cultivated reputation.
“I think people are waking up to the way the global elites operate entirely in their own interests, against the interests of the people they’re meant to serve,” Mr Lownie said.
For royalty, the outpouring of outrage is a concern.
“It has sort of chipped away at that idea of a family just sort of having the inherent right to rule,” said Dr Craig Prescott, who lectures on the constitutional and political role of the monarchy at Royal Holloway, University of London.
“Fundamentally, the monarchy rests on public support. If it doesn’t have the support of the public, then the point of a monarch that can represent the nation sort of disappears.”
– ABC News