Andrew's Pizza Alibi Is Fizzling

It may be an odd footnote to years-old interview, but it's relevant today as former Prince Andrew continues to fend off accusations. As the BBC explains, Mountbatten-Windsor gave a famous 2019 interview in which he claimed to have been at a Pizza Express restaurant with his daughter on the March 2001 night that Virginia Giuffre alleges she had sex with him after clubbing in London. It turns out the pizza chain conducted its own internal investigation after the interview and found no evidence that Andrew visited their restaurant in Woking that night.

The BBC says its own renewed reporting has likewise turned up no witness who recalls seeing him at the restaurant. A Freedom of Information request to London's Metropolitan Police, asking whether royal protection officers accompanied the prince there that night, was met with a "neither confirm nor deny" response—an answer criticized by Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, who called for an exception.

Mountbatten-Windsor, arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office and released under investigation, has repeatedly rejected the allegations made by the late Giuffre. When asked during the 2019 interview how he happened to remember a dinner from 18 years prior, he responded, "Because going to Pizza Express in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do," notes the Times of London.