My friend was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew

Prince Andrew’s friendship with convicted financier and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein has always been the subject of intrigue and mystery.

A new A&E documentary titled “Secrets of Prince Andrew” has done a deep dive into their allyship, including allegations against the disgraced royal made by Epstein accusers, Lisa Phillips and Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

The Duke of York, 63, met the now-dead felon in 1999, having been introduced by British heiress Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s girlfriend at the time.

“[Andrew and Epstein] became extremely close,” royal biographer Andrew Lownie claimed in the documentary. “You know, real best buddies. There were seven different numbers for Andrew in Epstein’s little black book.”

According to Lownie, Epstein allegedly “had the most intimate details of Andrew’s life,” and claims that “Epstein said, ‘There’s only one person who likes sex more than me, and that’s Andrew.’ “

“There’s no doubt that they were seeing each other almost every month,” he claimed.

Lownie said that Epstein and Maxwell were often welcomed into Andrew’s royal life.

“They stayed at Balmoral. They were at Sandringham. They were invited to personal birthday parties at Windsor. They met other members of the royal family,” Lownie said. “Epstein and Ghislaine were invited to the heart of the British monarchy.”

Dickie Arbiter, who served as a Buckingham Palace press secretary, claimed that “Andrew would’ve sought permission from the queen to invite him” to “private events.”

“The queen would believe her children,” he added, noting that “Andrew fell under his spell. [Epstein] could provide exotic holidays. He could provide yachts, provide girls.”

The Post has reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment.

‘Secrets on high-powered men’

Phillips, 45, revealed she met Epstein and Andrew when she was on a modeling shoot in 2000 on an isle in the West Indies not far from Epstein’s infamous private island, Little St. James.

Phillips’ friend, whose name has never been revealed, invited herself and other models to the residence. Phillips naively tagged along, not thinking that anything was out of the ordinary since she heard Epstein “does amazing things for models” and was reportedly “a really great guy.”

“The island was like a fortress that very little people knew about so if any information got to the outside world, that would be very bad for Epstein,” she said. 

While she was there, she met the prince during dinner.

“The model had said to me, ‘Did you know that was Prince Andrew?’ ” Phillips shared. “I don’t think I was supposed to even see him, but he walked up at that moment to say goodbye.”

Phillips then noted that Epstein had persuaded her to stay on the island, because he didn’t want her to tell people that she saw Andrew there.

“Knowing that Jeffrey introduced me to a prince, he didn’t want anybody knowing about it,” she said.

He urged her to rest and relax at the beachy peninsula and said that he would often be “nice” to her and act “interested” in her future.

“I was completely groomed by this man and was doing everything he wanted. It was sexual abuse,” she said.

“At the time, the girls didn’t think Epstein was a bad guy. They looked up to him and felt like he cared about them. But when you look back on it, he was abusive and we were groomed and manipulated,” Phillips recalled. 

She then claimed that one evening, her friend came to her sobbing and admitted that Epstein had allegedly instructed her to have sex with Andrew in a private room.

She stated: “It was traumatic for her and after that, she was not the same. Her life went completely out of control.” 

Phillips said she asked Epstein why he allegedly encouraged her unnamed friend to have sexual intercourse with Andrew, and she remembered Epstein saying, “It’s good to have things on people.”

“He had a lot of secrets on high-powered men,” Phillips dished.

‘A road map to tear him apart’

Giuffre, 40, also spoke about her experiences as an alleged victim of Andrew, claiming that she was trafficked by Epstein for the royal in the early 2000s. She was only 17 at the time.

Andrew has previously denied all allegations made by Giuffre.

The infamous photograph of herself and Andrew hugging in 2001 was released to the newspapers in 2011.

In his tragic 2019 “Newsnight” interview, Andrew claimed he had “absolutely no memory” of that particular photo being taken — and many of his friends adamantly believed the snapshot was a fake, according to the documentary. Andrew also claimed during the sit-down that he and Epstein were “not that close.”

Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on charges of underage sex trafficking, with the case coming to a dramatic halt when he allegedly committed suicide in prison just a month later.

After his death, Giuffre filed a sex abuse lawsuit against Andrew in 2021.

By early 2022, the case between Giuffre and Andrew was dismissed, and he was ordered to pay a settlement of an undisclosed sum to her.

As a result, Queen Elizabeth stripped him of his military and royal titles, and he stepped down from public duty.

Giuffre’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley also appeared in the series and explained that her legal team sent Andrew several letters and subpoenas regarding the lawsuit. However, he ignored them and kept ducking the legal couriers who were trying to serve him papers.

“He said so many false things in the interview and it was just a road map to tear him apart,” McCawley said of Emily Maitlis’ conversation with the prince on “Newsnight.”

“Andrew and his team was throwing everything but the kitchen sink to the judge in an effort to get [the] case dismissed,” Epstein victims’ lawyer Lisa Bloom added.

A ‘very mysterious Gatsby-like figure’

Vicky Ward, the Vanity Fair journalist who wrote a bombshell exposé on Epstein in 2003, claimed that Epstein’s appeal for Andrew was because the disgraced royal liked to “consort with people who had lots of money, like millionaires like Epstein and Ghislaine.”

“Epstein sold himself as this brilliant genius,” Ward said. “I was a journalist investigating Epstein and he was this very mysterious Gatsby-like figure who famously loved this extraordinary posh lifestyle.”

“Jeffrey Epstein was incredibly skilled at reading people and at manipulating people,” she said. “Prince Andrew was not the only person to be fooled by Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein was a brilliant, manipulative, deceptive con artist.”

Maxwell, 61, who is currently serving her own prison sentence for being Epstein’s accomplice in sexual abuse crimes, was also friends with Andrew since they “both knew powerful people.”

“Prince Andrew has always been obsessed with money and this is the world that he thinks he belongs in,” Ward added, noting that Epstein introduced Andrew to powerful figures like former President Bill Clinton.

“Perhaps what Epstein gave Andrew was the courtiers that he did not really have in real life,” said Ward.

The documentary “Secrets of Prince Andrew” premieres Monday, Aug. 21 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on A&E.