I had hoped to put up a review of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice soon after I received a copy. But just a few chapters into the book, I had to take a break. Virginia was sexually abused long before she was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell to become one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. And this part of the story is tough to read, how Sky, her father, abused her when she was just a child and Lynn, her mother, not only looked the other way, but beat Virginia with thorny rose branches pulled from the garden. Just like Epstein would do at one point, Virginia’s father passed her along to his friend, Forrest. Despite these two despicable examples of parenting, Virginia was the one punished, at one point being put into a home for troubled teens, ironically called Growing Together, where the abuse continued.
Virginia tried to escape many times, but without money or anyone to help, she would often be returned to her parents or Growing Together. Amy Wallace spent four years working as a ghostwriter with Virginia and writes a heartfelt note at the beginning of the book. After two other suicide attempts, on April 25, Virginia took her own life before the book’s publication date on October 21, 2025. Wallace had been concerned about Virginia’s state of mind. She also knew, despite how Virginia presented her husband, Robbie, in the book as her savior, he had been abusing his wife for a long time.
Virginia never stood a chance. Abuse not only damages the body, it damages the mind and the soul. By the time Maxwell spotted Virginia at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and lured her to Epstein’s palatial home, the die was cast. And even after she escaped, she managed to marry someone who would continue that abuse.
Virginia knew that the story she was telling was difficult to read because she would often take a break in the narrative from what was happening to her in one of Epstein’s many homes, and jump ahead to talk in loving terms about her life in Australia with Robbie and their three children. Her recasting of Robbie fit a troubling pattern. Several times Virginia attempted to mend her relationships with her father and mother, even though neither one apologized or accepted any responsibility for what had happened to their daughter. Virginia knew, and states many times in the book, that trying to make Sky and Lynn into people capable of love was hopeless. Yet she persisted, flying her father to Australia to meet his grandchildren and at one point moving to Colorado to be near her mother who had remarried.
Virginia met Robbie in Thailand where she was sent by Maxwell to find a Thai girl that Epstein was interested in. The carrot was that Virginia would be taking lessons at a well-known massage school to finally realize one of her dreams to become a professional masseuse. Although Virginia was thousands of miles away from Maxwell and Epstein, she still lived in fear that she would never be able to escape their control. After only a few weeks together, Robbie proposed and they got married and moved to Australia. Calling Epstein to tell him she wasn’t returning, he told her, “have a good life,” and hung up. She wouldn’t speak to him again for more than five years.
Robbie’s parents, Antonia and Frank, had emigrated to Australia from Sicily. His parents welcomed her into the family and provided valuable support once their grandchildren arrived. Although she was now living on the opposite side of the globe from Epstein, she realized she would never be able to leave that part of her life behind. In 2007, she picked up the phone to hear Maxwell’s British accent. “I can’t believe this but, after everything he’s done for those girls, Jeffrey’s being investigated,” she said. If Virginia refused to cooperate with the investigators, she’d be “taken care of,” Maxwell told her. Virginia responded: “I’ve started a new life, Ghislaine. I just want to be left alone.”
A few days later, Epstein himself called and she repeated what she had told Maxwell. The next call came from the FBI. She had been identified as one of Epstein’s victims. Although she terminated the call without answering any questions, she knew the investigation would not go away.
In 2008, Virginia received a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice that she was being contacted because she was “an identified victim of a federal offense.” A scheduled trial in Florida never happened, however, when Epstein made an unprecedented deal where he plead guilty to two state charges – procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute – and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. He ended up serving only 13 months, during which time he was allowed to go on “work release” to the office of a nonprofit he had created. Once his time was over, the nonprofit was dissolved.
The second half of the book is a detailed account of everything that happened once Virginia decided she was no longer a victim and wanted to expose the truth about what Maxwell and Epstein had done to her and to so many other girls and women. Virginia did get to see Epstein arrested and held without bail awaiting trial in New York. But his death in prison, a death still called a suicide, brought no closure to her or the other victims.
Prince Andrew was one of the men who had been identified as one of Epstein’s friends. Virginia still had that damning photograph: Andrew with his arm around Virginia and Maxwell, off to the right, smiling. In the book, Virginia details the three times she was forced to have sex with the royal. Although Prince Andrew had been under pressure for a long time to tell the truth about what happened, even gave a disastrous TV interview where he made up several claims about why the encounters never occurred, public opinion kept building for the royal family to speak up. The release of Giuffre’s memoir was the final blow. On October 30, King Charles III formally stripped his brother of all his royal titles, including “prince” and going forward he will be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. He’s also been ordered to vacate his Windsor home where he has been living with his ex-wife, Fergie. He also will not be included in the royal family’s Christmas celebration.
Virginia didn’t live to see Andrew’s disgrace. And although she took comfort that Maxwell had been tried, found guilty and given a long prison sentence, she didn’t live to see the woman who was responsible for bringing her into Epstein’s orbit moved to a minimum security facility, something that never happens for those found guilty of sexual crimes. And if President Trump pardons Maxwell, she won’t witness that, either.
Virginia does mention the names of other men she was forced to have sex with, but out of concern for her and her family’s safety, she withheld other names. (She was particularly concerned about a former prime minister who was unbelievably cruel to her.) Are those names in the Epstein files that Congress refuses to release to the public? Who is still being protected? We have yet to find out.
Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Virginia Roberts Giuffre
Top photo: Shutterstock
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