It was a frank admission from Ms Giuffre, the woman who accused Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse, and who has died by suicide aged 41.
That mixture of determination and the effects of the damage inflicted on Giuffre had been two forces pulling at her life since 2010, when she decided to come forward publicly and accuse Andrew of having sex with her after she was trafficked by the late paedophile Epstein.
Giuffre sued Andrew in a civil case and extracted a reported $16m settlement from him and effectively forced him out of the public spotlight. (He has always denied the claims.)
When she was seven, a close family friend began molesting her. Years later she ran away from home, briefly living on the streets and with an aunt in California.
Giuffre has described being passed around Epstein’s powerful friends like a “platter of fruit”, including Andrew, who she claimed had sex with her three times when she was 17.
We had first met in person the previous month, after I had seen her stand up and speak during an extraordinary New York court hearing that formally concluded the Epstein case.
But I also remember how trusting she seemed in both those conversations, and thinking how that vulnerability could easily have been exploited, especially when she was younger.
square ANNE MCELVOY
Virginia Giuffre's death leaves a legacy of shame for her abusersRead More
The words she spoke in are haunting now, telling me that “I have my good days and my bad days” and that “I’m by no means a perfect person but I’ve been on a journey to healing when I started talking about this.”
As Giuffre put it, once you were able to escape from Epstein “you’re left trying to figure out the pieces of your life and who you want to be and what you want to be”.
“When you start making your life decisions on your own it’s almost like being reborn again. It’s a funny way to put it. It’s also harrowing”
Giuffre had been going through a messy split with her husband Robert, the father of her children, and her family have claimed that he has been physically abusive to her.
In a statement, her family said that Giuffre was a “fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse”, and that the “toll of abuse… became unbearable”.
Epstein victims who I speak to told me that they were “shocked but not surprised” at the death of Giuffre given the damage inflicted on her so deeply and so young.
As Kuvin put it: “Sadly, we often witness that sexual abuse leaves lasting scars that never fully heal. Abuse victims never truly recover from what has transpired”.
He told me: “She was one of the strongest people I have ever known, but the physical abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, and the verbal abuse she continued to suffer at the hands of his collaborators trying to salvage their reputations by attacking hers, finally wore her down.
If you need help, contact the Samaritans on 116 123 or MIND on 0300 123 3393. If you have or are suffering from domestic abuse, call the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.
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