The Real Photos of Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein in NYC

The first scene of Netflix's new film, Scoop, about Prince Andrew's disastrous 2019 BBC Newsnight interview, is set in New York City in 2010. It opens with photographer Jae Donnelly (played by Connor Swindells) staking out Jeffrey Epstein's Upper East Side townhouse with writer Annette Witheridge (Kate Fleetwood).

They watch a young girl leave the townhouse, and the next day, they see Epstein (Colin Wells) and Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell) walk out of the property, and start heading towards Central Park. "Here we go," Donnelly tells Witheridge. "It's Epstein." She replies, "That's him, that's Andrew!" before a car blocks their shot. Donnelly jumps out of the car with his camera, following the pair of men into Central Park. He keeps his camera hidden as he walks behind them, trying to take their picture, but eventually he changes plans and runs to try and get a better shot.

Scoop then shows him sprinting ahead of Epstein and the Duke of York, diving into the bushes, and perching on a rock above the path. He aims his camera, and shoots, capturing the now-infamous image of Epstein and Prince Andrew. Here, the real-life photo of Prince Andrew and Epstein walking in Central Park from 2010:

Andrew and Epstein on December 5, 2010 in Central Park.

"We just had a tip-off that Andrew was in town," Witheridge later told Vanity Fair. Starting on December 3, she began staking out Ghislaine Maxwell's townhouse on East 65th street. "Because they're old friends and I assumed if he was staying anywhere he would be staying with Ghislaine," Witheridge explains. "Andrew would stay at hotels but generally he tends to stay with rich people." Then, she realized, he wasn't staying at Maxwell's—but at Epstein's townhouse, on East 71st street.

Three days later, the stakeout paid off: "It was very sudden. Poof!" she recalls. "A very gray man came out. Epstein had steel white gray hair, and I didn’t realize how gray Prince Andrew had gotten. I went, ‘Oh, my God, it's Prince Andrew!" She continues, "I later thought, Why on earth didn't his royal protection squad say, 'There's a team of reporters and photographers outside.'" They quickly took off after the duo. As depicted in Scoop, Donnelly got out of the SUV.

Per Vanity Fair, "He couldn't pass them without being spotted by the security detail. So he raced out of the park and down Fifth Avenue, then leapt over a wall back into the park, where he was soon standing on a rock formation overlooking the path the duo would soon take. And there, at approximately 1:40 p.m. on Sunday, December 5, 2010, atop a massive mound of black Manhattan schist bedrock, Jae Donnelly pulled the camera out of his backpack and waited for Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein. At the precise moment they passed beneath him, he began firing off frames. Bang! A few seconds for the photographer, forever for posterity."

Donnelly says, "Without that photo they would have the chance to deny any knowledge of knowing each other. And that photo, for them, sadly exists." The photo later ran in News of the World on February 20, 2011, under the headline "PRINCE ANDY & THE PAEDO," accompanied by story was written by investigations editor Mazher Mahmood. Witheridge says, "Without that picture there would not have been a story. We wouldn't be able to prove it. We wouldn't have been able to say Prince Andrew spent four nights or whatever at the home of a convicted pedophile."

Scoop is now streaming on Netflix. Watch now

Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.