Virginia Roberts Giuffre died by suicide in April last year, but her story did not end there. A British prince was stripped of his title. Ambassadors and politicians lost their jobs. Millions of Epstein files entered the public record. A U.S. president remains under scrutiny. Six months after her death, her memoir Nobody's Girl was published, laying bare for the first time the complete arc of her abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and his associates.
Sky Roberts, Giuffre's younger brother, has spent the year since transformed into an unlikely advocate. Alongside his wife, Amanda, he is relaunching his sister's nonprofit organization, Soar, campaigning for Virginia's Law to remove the federal statute of limitations in sexual abuse cases, and pushing for the full release of remaining Epstein documents. "We couldn't let her story end there," Amanda says.
Sky and Amanda live in Colorado in a home filled with photographs and butterfly mementos tied to Giuffre's cause. Neither had a background in advocacy or politics. "We got thrust into it within months of her death," Sky explains. "A lot of it was driven by a sense of purpose. Virginia used to say, 'How do you turn pain into purpose?' And I couldn't allow her story to be narrated by people that didn't know her or understand who she was."
The year has brought visible vindication for Giuffre's decades-long fight. In October, when The Guardian published extracts from her memoir, pressure on Prince Andrew intensified. Days before the book's release, he gave up his titles. King Charles officially stripped him of his HRH style and prince title the following month. "It was a victory which Virginia deserved to be here for," Amanda says. "It was such a moment of vindication for her."
What Giuffre did not live to witness was the scale of impact. The partial, heavily redacted release of Epstein files created a reckoning across institutions and governments. Yet for Sky, there remains a hollow ache. "This year has been extraordinary," he says. "I just wish Virginia was here to see it."
The memoir forced readers to confront how Giuffre's exploitation began long before Epstein. Growing up on a modest farm in Loxahatchee, Florida, she endured abuse from her father starting around age seven. He threatened to kill Sky if she told anyone. Years later, Epstein would employ the same terror, showing Giuffre a photograph of her young brother on his way to school.
"I remember Virginia saying to me, 'If I'm going to tell my story, I have to tell all of it,'" Sky recalls, his voice breaking. "That takes so much courage." Their father, a maintenance worker at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, has denied all allegations. Sky is unequivocal: "I wholeheartedly believe my sister. Virginia has been proven to be a truth-teller time and time again."
Before she was 16, Giuffre endured rape by multiple men, was trafficked by a man named Ron Eppinger who later pleaded guilty, and survived a treatment center for troubled youth that was later shut down for mistreating residents. When her father got her a job at Mar-a-Lago, she encountered Ghislaine Maxwell, who introduced her to Epstein. She was 15.
Amy Wallace, the journalist who co-wrote the memoir, explained the crucial context: "When you're seven and you're given the message from somebody very close to you that your worth on this planet is to serve at the sexual pleasure of them, that erodes your self-worth. Which in her life it really did."
Giuffre did not live to see how her willingness to detail the full arc of abuse shifted public understanding. For years, she was vilified online and in media outlets. When she settled a civil lawsuit against Prince Andrew for a reported 12 million pounds in 2022 without admission of liability, critics called her a liar and money-grabber. "When you come forward and you're denied believing from authorities and public, and you're scrutinized, it is a reinjury," Amanda says.
Through it all, Sky watched his sister demonstrate what he calls a protector's instinct. "She was always the one that would say, 'If you tell me I can't do it, watch me,'" he says. "Virginia was hellbent, and it doesn't mean it didn't affect her. She was a survivor warrior."
At the time of her death at age 41, Giuffre was separated from her husband and had not been allowed to see her three children. Sky and Amanda have no contact with them, though Amanda hopes they may engage with Giuffre's legacy "when they're ready." An ongoing battle over her estate remains unresolved.
The work continues, though the loss shapes every step. "It's a giant hole in your stomach and in your heart," Sky says. Still, he and Amanda remain committed to the path his sister carved. "She paved the way, and we want to keep paving that road forward for other survivors out there."
Author James Rodriguez: "A year of stunning vindication for a woman who won't be here to claim it, and a brother left holding the weight of finishing what she started."
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