Virginia Giuffre passed away last Thursday in Australia. She’d been living in Australia for years, having escaped Jeffrey Epstein’s human-trafficking operation. She married Robert Giuffre when she was in her early 20s, and they had three children together, aged 19, 16 and 15. Weeks ago, when Virginia claimed that she was dying from renal failure following a car accident, people sort of checked in what was happening with her marriage. That was when I heard about the domestic violence restraining order taken out against her by her estranged husband Robert Giuffre. I did not know the situation so I tried to give Virginia some grace. Now, following her death, it absolutely sounds like she was been treated abhorrently by her estranged husband, and that was a huge factor in everything that happened in recent months.
Virginia Giuffre’s death by suicide shocked the world. It also left many unanswered questions. Her family and her longtime representative would not discuss details of Giuffre’s death at age 41 with PEOPLE. “We are still processing everything,” her sister-in-law, Amanda Roberts, told PEOPLE in an exclusive interview on April 26.
Giuffre was grappling with a host of issues when she was found dead on the farm where she lived outside of Perth, Australia, on Thursday, April 24. One that weighed on her the most was a restraining order her husband had taken out against her in February that prevented her from seeing her children ages 19, 16 and 15, until June. He claimed she violated the order, which she denied.
“It’s the worst pain in the world to not have access to your children,” Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts, previously told PEOPLE in an exclusive interview on April 3. “Can you imagine the pain? I will tell you, all the physical (pain) will never amount to the pain of being separated from your children in that way.”
Before she died, Giuffre had been allegedly physically abused by her husband of 22 years, Robert Giuffre, the father of her three children, from whom she separated in 2023, Sky and Amanda said.
She also allegedly endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre claims that Epstein trafficked her to rich and powerful men, including Prince Andrew, starting when she was just 16. (Andrew has denied the allegations, and Epstein denied the allegations before his death by suicide in 2019.)
Giuffre’s past was traumatic, but Sky told PEOPLE, “Nothing compares to a mother being separated from her child.”
In February, Robert filed a family restraining order against his wife, which gave him primary custody of their children and prohibited her from contacting them, Sky said.
During a trip to celebrate one of the children’s birthdays in January, Robert allegedly beat Giuffre so severely she was left with a cracked sternum and perforated eye, among other injuries, Sky said. She was transported to the hospital for her injuries, her spokeswoman said. Giuffre reported a Jan. 9, 2025, alleged assault in Dunsborough, Western Australia, to police, who did not charge Robert with any crime, her spokeswoman told PEOPLE. Giuffre’s attorney and PEOPLE were unable to obtain the incident report.
To the family’s shock, they say, Robert quickly filed a family violence restraining order against Giuffre, alleging that she had become violent with him.
“He just put his in place first,” Sky says. “He beat her to the punch. And so, now, she’s on the defense.” Not being able to contact her children was excruciating for Giuffre because she loved them so much, Amanda and Sky both said. “At the end of the day, her kids are the most important thing in her life,” Sky told PEOPLE. “She loves those babies.”
I can totally understand how a traumatized young woman who survived years of trafficking would look for any safe harbor, any way out, and end up married to a man who turned out to be an abusive and controlling POS. To be harmed and abused this way by so many men in so many different ways, and then separated from her teenaged children… poor Virginia. And the poor kids too – they had not seen their mom in months. I also appreciate that Virginia’s brother is getting a different aspect of Virginia’s story out there.
Speaking of, Virginia’s lawyer Karrie Louden has spoken to the media and expressed her doubts about Virginia’s death. Louden said that she believes there are “big question marks over it… She was in a lot of pain but she was looking forward to things in the future. She wanted to renovate this house and all sorts of things like that. When I got the phone call, I was like, ‘are you joking?’ Because there was no sign that that was something she was considering.”
Photos courtesy of BBC/Avalon Red/WENN.
