Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell made an “important” gesture while discussing “dear friend” Prince Andrew during her controversial interview from prison. Body language expert Judi James told Express.co.uk the 61-year-old “seemed to be rubbing her hands together” on mention of the Duke, which may symbolise “miming washing her hands of it all”.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence in Florida after being found guilty last year of luring young women and girls to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The disgraced socialite spoke with TalkTV host Jeremy Kyle on Monday night, lifting the lid on her relationship with former lover Epstein and friend Andrew.
Maxwell’s manner on the topic of the 62-year-old royal may also indicate a surge of anxiety, Ms James suggests.
She said: “When she spoke about Andrew she seemed to be rubbing her hands together in a gesture that was so important to her she cradled the phone in her shoulder to perform it.
“Was she miming washing her hands of it all or was it more of an anxiety ritual?
“We didn’t see that gesture again in these clips so the wiping seemed to be reserved for him as a subject.
“She looked distracted here and her speech ran at a slow pace with long pauses as she searched for the right words.”
Maxwell’s body language appeared “squirming” and there were only a “few brief moments of stillness”, Ms James said.
READ MORE: Ghislaine Maxwell moans of 6am wake-up calls and too much tofu in jail
The body language expert added: “The self-touch, self-comfort and cut-off rituals came thick and fast to the point where it was impossible to keep count.
“These rituals appeared to occur more frequently when she was speaking on a ‘safe’ topic than when she was speaking about Epstein and the girls described as his victims.”
During the interview, Maxwell also claimed that the infamous photo featuring Prince Andrew with his arm around accuser, Virginia Guiffre, is fake. Former socialite Maxwell appears in the background, smiling.
In the interview, featuring a pixelated Maxwell speaking on a landline phone from prison, she said: “With the fake, I don’t believe that’s real for a second. In fact, I’m sure it’s not.”
She went on: “Well, there has never been an original and further there is no photograph and I’ve only seen a photocopy of it.”
Discussing her claims that the photograph is “fake”, US attorney Lisa Bloom, who represented Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, told Kyle: “Prince Andrew was in active litigation with Virginia for many months and he had every opportunity at that point to prove that the photo was fake if it was.
“He could have subpoenaed the original, sent it out to experts and we never heard any proof that it was.
“I think Ghislaine Maxwell is trying to establish that now to help her friend, Prince Andrew. I don’t think it is particularly helpful to Prince Andrew that his only public advocate in the entire world is a convicted sex trafficker currently serving a 20-year sentence.
“But if he wanted to prove that, he could have proved it”.
Epstein died in a jail cell in 2019 aged 66.
In February, Andrew reached an out-of-court settlement with Ms Giuffre to stave off a civil court case.
Ms Giuffre had been suing the Duke of York, claiming he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was 17. Andrew has repeatedly denied the allegations and the undisclosed sum was not an admission of liability.
Maxwell was convicted of five charges in December 2021 relating to the recruitment of victims for Epstein between 1994 and 2004 following a month-long trial.
