Virginia Giuffre, who accused the late Jeffrey Epstein of sexually trafficking her as a teenager, died by suicide at age 41 on Thursday, her family announced Friday.
While her death was described as a suicide, the specific cause remains unknown. Her death is not being considered suspicious so far, Australian authorities said.
“It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia,” her family said in a statement. “She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking.”
“Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors,” they added. “In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight.”
NBC News was one of the first to report on Giuffre’s death after receiving the family’s statement. In September 2019, NBC’s Savannah Guthrie formally interviewed Giuffre and five other women who levied sexual assault allegations against Epstein.
Giuffre was one of the most outspoken accusers of Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who remains in prison for sexually exploiting and abusing female minors with the disgraced financier for over a decade.
The prominent sexual abuse survivor first sued Epstein in 2009 as an anonymous Jane Doe, alleging that she was caught in a sex-trafficking operation between 1999 and 2002. The civil lawsuit was later settled for $500,000. Giuffre was the first accuser to go public, inspiring other victims to come forward.
In 2015, Giuffre filed a defamation lawsuit against Maxwell. The case was settled two years later for an undisclosed sum.
In 2021, Giuffre alleged in a separate civil lawsuit she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew in several encounters when she was 16 and 17. Prince Andrew denied the allegations, but he relinquished his military titles and royal patronages in 2022 after a U.S. judge allowed the case to proceed to trial. The suit was ultimately settled, with the British royal agreeing to pay the plaintiff an undisclosed amount.
Epstein died by an apparent suicide in his Manhattan jail cell in August 2019, before his trial on federal sex trafficking charges could begin. He reportedly hung himself.
Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent against whom Giuffre testified, also hung himself in his Paris prison cell in February 2022.
News of Giuffre’s suicide arrived one month after she revealed on Instagram a school bus hit her car and sent her to the hospital. Treated for kidney renal failure, Giuffre claimed she had “four days to live.” She ended up living another four weeks.
The bus driver involved in the accident said Giuffre was exaggerating the severity of the incident when she claimed the bus was being driven at nearly 70 miles per hour. She reportedly sat in the passenger seat at the time of the crash.
Giuffre left behind her three young children at their home in Perth, Australia. She recently split with her husband after 22 years of marriage, according to reports. A week after her car accident, Giuffre claimed she was abused by her longtime husband, who allegedly violated a family violence restraining order in February.
An old tweet of Giuffre’s resurfaced in the week of her death. In December 2019, she claimed that she was not suicidal.
“I am making it publicly known that in no way, shape or form am I suicidal,” she wrote at the time. “I have made this known to my therapist and GP – If something happens to me – in the sake of my family do not let this go away and help me to protect them. Too many evil people want to see me [quieted].”