I gave Andrew a naked massage at Buckingham Palace… the £75 bill was paid by the Royal Family’s Coutts bank cheque
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor enjoyed a private naked massage in a bedroom at Buckingham Palace – all paid for using a cheque from the Palace, the Daily Mail can reveal.
The shamed former prince snuck professional masseuse Monique Giannelloni into the late Queen’s official residence after she was recommended to him by Ghislaine Maxwell.
Ms Giannelloni claims she was waved through into the Palace without any security checks before being taken up to Andrew’s room where Andrew emerged from the bathroom completely naked before lying down on the massage chair.
South African Ms Giannelloni provided the Mail with an invoice showing Buckingham Palace settled the £75 bill directly from a Coutts account.
The rub down took place in June 2000 – a few months before the then Duke of York became UK Trade Envoy in 2001, a role that he held until 2011 when he was forced to stand down over his friendship with the paedophile billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaking exclusively to the Mail, Ms Giannelloni said: ‘I got to the room and Andrew was stood there in a robe,’ she said. ‘After saying “Hello”, he disappeared to the bathroom and came back in the nude.
‘I averted my eyes and I was quite embarrassed.’
Ms Giannelloni said other than the initial embarrassment, she had no issues during the massage and that the then Duke was ‘very nice and very gentlemanly’.
South African Monique Giannelloni has provided the Mail with an invoice showing Buckingham Palace settled the £75 bill directly from a Coutts account
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, pictured in 2011, was ‘very nice and very gentlemanly’, said Ms Giannelloni
Ms Giannelloni was paid £75 for massaging the Duke of York, who ‘draped himself across my massage table’ and ‘sent a fresh wave of nervous energy coursing through me’
She added: ‘I was so nervous I was in Buckingham Palace I was going through the motions and doing what I knew and if there was anything untoward I don’t really remember noticing that except for the fact he took the towel off very fast.
‘I can’t actually say anything bad about Prince Andrew in my experience on that day. I only massaged him once.’
The masseuse says she was first introduced to Andrew through Maxwell, who had somehow got hold of the masseurs’ contact details.
She said: ‘I first had a call from Ghislaine Maxwell’s secretary in New York. At that stage I had a lot of high profile clients and it was all by word of mouth so I have no idea how she initially got my number.
‘She had wanted a late night massage but I had told her I don’t do that so I went in the morning the next day.
‘When I went there, Jeffrey Epstein was also in the room the whole time and they were talking about purchasing some island for around £20million, which I thought was very strange and it was awkward that Epstein was just standing there.’
During one of the two appointments Ms Giannelloni had with Maxwell, the socialite told the masseur: ‘I am going to introduce you to someone more famous than God.’
Shortly after, Ms Giannelloni received a call from the Duke of York’s staff asking her to come to the Palace for the appointment.
‘When I got a call from the Duke of York’s officers I immediately thought of Ghislaine because of what she had said.
‘I didn’t know who Ghislaine or Epstein were. I obviously knew Prince Andrew but at the time I had no idea about their associations or what they were involved in.
‘She said to me once: “Don’t you know who I am darling? You should read the tabloids I am a celebrity.”‘
The appointment with Andrew was quickly set up and Ms Giannelloni drove into Buckingham Palace, parked up her car and before being taken to the then Prince’s room by a valet.
There were no personal security guards in the room or outside, according to Ms Giannelloni.
The cheque was signed off by the former Duke’s then-personal assistant Charlotte Manley and was paid out of the Royal Family’s Coutts account.
Ms Giannelloni was one of the most sought after massage therapists in the UK, working for high profile clients
The Royal Family receives a number of streams of income. This includes taxpayer funding from the Sovereign grant, profits from the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall, as well as personal private investments.
It comes as two whistleblowing former civil servants have claimed bills for Andrew’s massages and luxury travel during his overseas sojourns as the nation’s trade envoy were quietly dumped on taxpayers.
Whitehall officials were said to have been left horrified over Andrew’s excessive spending on flights, hotel rooms and charges including spa treatments during his decade in the prestigious position.
The revelations flatly contradict statements previously made by Buckingham Palace which insisted, as Andrew’s tenure came to an end in 2011, that he paid for ‘all personal expenses’ during trade trips.
One ex-civil servant said he was so appalled the public was footing the tab for Andrew’s pampering that he had tried to block a payment for ‘massage services’ but was overruled by senior staff.
‘I thought it was wrong… I’d said we mustn’t pay it, but we ended up paying it anyway,’ he said about a claim that followed a visit by Andrew to the Middle East.
He said the department had missed an opportunity to check the royal’s behaviour while trade representative by allowing such expenses to go through without question.
‘I can’t say it would have stopped him, but we should have flagged that something was wrong,’ says the retired civil servant.
Another source, a former senior Whitehall official who oversaw finances in that area, confirmed he too had also seen similar expenses for Andrew’s trips.
He told the BBC he had been shocked by the scale of Andrew’s lavish spending as envoy, including excessive flights and unreasonable numbers of hotel rooms and charges for his entourage.
‘I couldn’t believe it… it was like it wasn’t real money, they weren’t spending any of their own money,’ said the senior official.
It is not the first time allegations have been made about the former royal having massages whilst working in his position as envoy.
During an official trip to Indonesia in 2011 the then-Prince enjoyed a £1,200-per-night stay at the Shangri-La Hotel and was given rose-petal massages by one of the staff members in Jakarta.
Ria, a 28-year-old massuese, is seen in the Shangri-La Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, on April 9, 2011. Andrew had engaged her services a number of times over the years during his stays in the capital city
A massage bed with rumpled towels is seen in the ‘Kuala Lumpur Suite’, a ‘presidential’ suite in the Shangri-La Hotel in Jakarta shortly after Andrew checked out on April 8, 2011. According to hotel records, he had a 60-minute massage at 9.30pm the day before
The massage therapist Ria, who had four appointments with the then-Duke, told The Mail on Sunday at the time: ‘He was very friendly to me. I called him Sir at first because my English is not good and I find it difficult to say Your Royal Highness.
‘He told me, “Just call me Andrew. I am Andrew here.”‘
The former prince – whose love of luxury travel and private jets earned him the nickname ‘Air Miles Andy’ – is being investigated for misconduct in public office over allegations he exploited his role to leak confidential information to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and other wealthy contacts.
His dramatic downfall, capped by his sensational arrest last week, will see the disgraced royal retreat to his new home on the Sandringham Estate with nothing more than a chef and a lone valet.
Andrew is accused of sharing sensitive information with paedophile financier Epstein during his time as special representative for international trade and investment.
He was dramatically arrested on Thursday at Sandringham before being questioned for hours at a local police station.
He has previously denied any wrongdoing over his friendship with Epstein.
