The shadow of Jeffrey Epstein will loom large over President Donald Trump’s royal night at the White House on Tuesday, with survivors planning to gather to protest King Charles III’s invitation.
Epstein survivors said they plan to stage a high tea outside President Trump’s banquet with Charles and Queen Camilla, criticizing the royal couple for declining to meet with them.
“It feels like the monarchy is choosing distance over honesty,” said protest organizer Rina Oh about the royal couple ignoring the scandal during the U.S. visit despite Charles’ brother, former Prince Andrew, being arrested in February on charges stemming from an Epstein investigation.
Oh said the protest will take the form of a “performance art piece” aimed at capturing the king’s attention. But it could prove embarrassing for the king, given that he has repeatedly declined to meet with survivors despite their requests.
“Survivors want to be seen, acknowledged, and validated. We are asking for King Charles to meet with us for a few minutes and listen to what we have to say: We are living through this nightmare every day of our lives. This protest is about forcing the truth into the open, not politely asking for it,” Oh told The Daily Beast.
Oh was assaulted by Epstein when she was a 21-year-old art student in New York, and is a vocal critic of the handling of the scandal by Trump, 79, and the royal family.
The royal family has been mired in the controversy due to the behavior of King Charles’ younger brother Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, who was described by Epstein as a “supreme friend.”
Andrew appears in a series of compromising photographs in the Epstein files, and was arrested on his birthday on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The investigation into his behavior is ongoing.
The scandal, however, led Charles to strip Andrew of his royal title.
The Epstein protest comes amid growing bipartisan discontent over the Trump administration’s handling of the disgraced financier’s abuse.
In the aftermath of the shooting at the Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday evening, it was revealed that alleged gunman Cole Thomas Allen justified the attack by saying he was “no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”
Allen did not specify whom he was referring to, but Trump appeared to suggest the remark alluded to his past friendship with Epstein, whom he socialized with at his Mar-a-Lago club.
“You read that crap from some sick person,” the president said in an interview with 60 Minutes Sunday. “I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me.”
Oh said Allen’s alleged statement showed a growing frustration with a lack of accountability for those at the top.
“Let me be very clear—violence is never okay. What we’re seeing in that statement is not justice, it’s desperation and anger boiling over in a dangerous way," she said.
“But it does reflect something deeper: a growing sense among some people that this government has failed to hold the powerful accountable. That’s exactly why protests like ours matter, because if people lose faith in justice, the consequences can spiral in ways we all should be concerned about.”
A palace spokesperson emphasized that the king and queen’s “thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”
But the palace cited the ongoing UK investigation into Epstein’s associates as a legal roadblock to any meetings with survivors.
