A new book about Prince Andrew has removed the claim that Jeffrey Epstein introduced President Donald Trump to his wife, Melania Trump.
The first 60,000 copies of Andrew Lownie’s Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, released on Aug. 14, included the allegation.
During Hunter Biden’s Aug. 5 interview with Andrew Callaghan on YouTube, Biden repeated biographer Michael Wolff’s claim that Epstein was the one who initially introduced the president to his third wife.
Entitled contained a similar claim. Future print editions of Lownie’s book, as well as the e-book and audiobook, now reflect the change.
A HarperCollins UK spokesperson told The Telegraph that the passages discussing the claim were removed following discussions between the publisher and Lownie, 64. The representative confirmed that while HarperCollins publishes the book in the U.K., it is self-published in the U.S.
Lownie and HarperCollins’ decision came after reports that Melania’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito, sent a letter to Biden on Aug. 6 demanding a full retraction of his statements. Brito wrote that Biden must “immediately retract the false, defamatory, disparaging and inflammatory statements made about Mrs. Trump.”
Brito emphasized the wide dissemination of the interview: “Indeed, the video has since been re-published by various media outlets, journalists, and political commentators with millions of social media followers that have disseminated the false and defamatory statements therein to tens of millions of people worldwide.”
If Biden failed to comply, Melania planned to sue for $1 billion to “recover the overwhelming financial and reputational harm that you have caused her to suffer,” with a deadline of Aug. 7 for both a retraction and apology.
Shortly after, President Trump told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on Aug. 12 that he had encouraged Melania to proceed.
“I told her, ‘Let’s go ahead and do it,’ ” Donald said, adding, “I let her use my lawyers.”
“Jeffrey Epstein had nothing to do with Melania and introducing,” the president clarified. “It was another person actually… but it wasn’t Jeffrey Epstein.”
Days later, on Aug. 14, Biden returned to Callaghan’s show, refusing to retract his statement. He again cited Wolff, who allegedly made similar claims. In July, Wolff was cited by the Daily Beast in a story titled “Melania Trump ‘very involved’ in Epstein Scandal: Author,” which was later deleted following legal threats.
Political analyst James Carville also issued an apology to the first lady after making similar claims on his Aug. 7 podcast and quickly hearing from Melania’s legal team.
The Trump administration has faced pressure to release files related to Epstein, to whom the president was publicly linked. Donald Trump and Epstein were friends for many years but had a falling out in the mid-2000s. His name appeared in flight logs released earlier this year by Attorney General Pam Bondi seven times, though inclusion does not necessarily indicate wrongdoing.
In early July, the FBI and Department of Justice released a memo stating their investigation into Epstein’s alleged crimes and death was complete, and that Epstein’s long-rumored “client list” did not exist.
