Prince Andrew, Duke of York’s so-called “Pizza Express alibi” during his 2019 interview about the Virginia Giuffre/Jeffrey Epstein scandal has become one of the most ridiculed moments of his public defence. In the sit-down with Emily Maitlis for the BBC’s Newsnight, he stated that on the night Giuffre alleges sexual contact—with her claim involving dancing and sweating at a London nightclub—he was instead at a children’s birthday party at a Pizza Express in Woking with his daughter, and then at home.
He doubled down by offering another unlikely defence: that due to an “overdose of adrenaline” during his service in the Falklands War he was now incapable of sweating, which in his view invalidated Giuffre’s description of him “profusely sweating”. The combination of the chain-restaurant birthday party in Woking and the medical-condition claim struck many as tone-deaf and implausible, contributing heavily to the backlash and the erosion of his credibility in the wider scandal.
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