Chapter Thirty-Seven Settling up and Settling Down
Thirty-seven
Settling Up and Settling Down
The paparazzi, meanwhile, had tracked my family down in Perth.
In February, the Daily Mail published this important news: “Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre is spotted vaping with foils in her hair outside salon in Australia as she prepares to take oath and be quizzed by the duke’s lawyers for her sex assault lawsuit.
” You can imagine how unflattering the accompanying photos were.
I looked like a half-crazed, metal-spiked witch (who also was trying to quit smoking).
Ah, the things we women do in the name of beauty.
But most women don’t have to worry about such things being captured by photographers. I tried not to let it bother me.
“Prince Andrew has never intended to malign Ms. Giuffre’s character,” the statement read in part, “and he accepts that she has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks.” Yes, indeed, including attacks from the prince’s own camp!
“It is known that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked countless young girls over many years,” the statement continued, acknowledging vastly more about Epstein’s predatory behavior than the prince himself had in his fateful BBC interview.
“Prince Andrew regrets his association with Epstein, and commends the bravery of Ms. Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others. He pledges to demonstrate his regret for his association with Epstein by supporting the fight against the evils of sex trafficking, and by supporting its victims.”
In that moment, I would have given anything to be in the same room with Siggy.
“Thank you, Siggy, for all that you’ve done for me,” I told her shakily over the phone.
She responded by repeating her assertion that representing me had been her complete honor.
“At the end of my life,” Siggy would tell me later, “when I look back on the best moments, that phone call will be one of them.”
On February 15, the settlement was announced.
We issued a joint statement that made clear Prince Andrew would pay me money, though the amount was kept confidential (later it was reported that his mother, the queen of England, had footed the bill).
The statement said he would also make a “substantial donation” in support of victims’ rights to my nascent nonprofit organization.
I agreed to a one-year gag order, which seemed important to the prince because it ensured that his mother’s Platinum Jubilee would not be tarnished any more than it already had been.
Because of the time difference, the settlement announcement came in the middle of our night in Australia.
That meant when we woke up the next day—Alex’s birthday—our street was choked with paparazzi.
The Giuffre family has a tradition: on their birthdays, all the kids get to go shopping to pick out their own gifts.
I still wanted to do that, but Robbie wasn’t sure we’d be able to get out of the driveway.
For a moment, I considered going out and throwing myself at the mercy of the reporters.
My plan was to say I was pleased with the settlement, then explain that it was Alex’s sweet sixteen and politely ask if we could have our privacy back.
But then I came to my senses. Were I to try that and then attempt to take Alex to the mall, the headlines would surely read: “Epstein Survivor Rushes Out to Start Spending Prince Andrew’s Money” or some such.
Robbie and I talked about it, and in the end, we promised Alex a rain check, and we all stayed home and got a cake, beer, and flowers delivered.
Three days later, Jean-Luc Brunel was found dead in the French prison where he’d been held for more than two years.
He had hanged himself. I did not give any interviews.
Two months earlier, a few weeks before Maxwell was convicted, my French lawyer had gotten in touch, saying Brunel was about to be let out on bond.
I’d told the lawyer that I couldn’t come back to Paris at that moment, but I needed him to go to court for me and argue against Brunel’s release.
That effort had succeeded, but now Brunel was dead.
“The suicide of Jean-Luc Brunel, who abused me and countless girls and women, ends another chapter,” I tweeted.
“I am disappointed that I was not able to face him in a final trial and hold him accountable for his actions, but gratified that I was able to face him in person in Paris, to keep him in prison.”
That same day, a consultant I’d hired to help me get my charity organized received this email, whose subject line read simply, “Explain.” The email read: “Maybe Virginia can explain how this sellout from Andrew provided justice to all the girls effected by this…SHE SOLD EVERYONE OUT and is just as bad as Epstein, Maxwell the now dead Jean and Andrew. #nosympathy.” We decided not to respond to the sender of this email, though she signed her name.
But I’d like to address what she said here.
Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, of course, but to equate me with four of my abusers is wrongheaded and even cruel.
As with Maxwell, I’d sued Prince Andrew in federal court, which meant a financial settlement was always going to be the prime form of punishment if we were successful.
But I’d gotten more out of him than that: an acknowledgment that I and many other women had been victimized and a tacit pledge to never deny that again.
Finally, my receipt of funds from the settlement has enabled me to finally make good on a long-standing goal of mine: to spend less of my energy unpacking the past and more on helping people in the present.
In November 2021, I’d relaunched my nonprofit (now called Speak Out, Act, Reclaim, or SOAR) with a new website and had set about updating its mission statement and the way it would be run.
Respectfully, I was attempting to help survivors of abuse—the opposite of what Epstein had done. I only wish it hadn’t taken me so long.
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All through this period, I was buoyed by the knowledge that Robbie and I had organized an amazing vacation: a hard-to-get reservation on the Ningaloo Coast, a coral reef so pristine that it has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The kids were excited to swim alongside whale sharks.
Me, I just wanted to get some sleep. My neck was hurting so much, and the painkillers I was taking were making me dizzy and disoriented.
But just when we were getting ready to travel, Robbie and Alex came down with COVID.
I called Ningaloo to cancel. Then I got COVID too.
Over the next several days, my blood-oxygen level went lower and lower.
When my hands and feet went numb and my left arm felt as if it had fallen asleep for good, Robbie didn’t wait for an ambulance.
He packed me in the car and took me straight back to the hospital.
I’ve told you how cunning an enemy trauma can be.
It hides in the shadows, then takes control of one’s psyche without warning.
That’s what happened as I lay in that hospital bed in Perth: all my feelings of sadness and shame overtook me.
I was worn out by the near-constant pain in my neck.
I was weary of defending myself against vicious, hurtful words: liar, sellout, extortionist, drug addict, whore.
I was sick of the nightmares: greedy, heaving men on top of me, men whose faces I recognized and would never forget, men whose faces I didn’t recognize.
Alarmingly, I see now, I wasn’t afraid anymore; instead, I just felt hollowed out.
So when my trauma tricked my brain into telling me lies, I listened: “It would be better for everyone if you weren’t here,” my brain said.
“You bring nothing but stress and worry into your husband and children’s lives.
Why should they suffer because Jeffrey and Ghislaine caused you pain?
You have let your family down. They deserve better.
They will be happier without you.” My trauma took aim at my very existence: “Aren’t you exhausted?
Unconsciousness would be a relief. Robbie and the kids are safe at home, so none of them will find you.
It won’t hurt a bit. The pills are on the bedside table.
It will be easy. You can just quietly slip away. ”
I believed my brain, so I reached for the painkillers that I had smuggled into the hospital and I swallowed as many as I could—later they’d estimate 240 pills—before I passed out.
I’m told that I was revived with Narcan, the opioid overdose treatment.
My fragile self-worth had imploded. All that remained were the shards of me.
Oh, the look on Robbie’s face when they told him.
He couldn’t bear the thought of me disappearing, and he wanted to strangle me for trying to disappear.
“What were you thinking, Jenna?” he demanded, but in my mind, I had no answer for him except: “I was thinking I needed to be dead.” Indeed, just days later, after I got out of the hospital, I would try to kill myself again, with more pills.
It was only because our son Alex came to check on me that I did not succeed.
For a second time, I woke up in the hospital, revived once more by Narcan.
After that, it would be a long time before my thoughts of self-annihilation would truly begin to subside.
Only then could I promise my husband and kids that I would try with all my might to believe that I mattered.
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