What to Know About Carole Radziwill’s Dinner With Ex-Prince Andrew

Carole Radziwill said the dinner Ghislaine Maxwell arranged with the former Duke of York was “kind of unmemorable.”

NEED TO KNOW

• Radziwill told RHONY castmates that Ghislaine Maxwell arranged a dinner with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after her husband Anthony died in 1999.
• Radziwill, an Emmy-winning ex-ABC News journalist, returned to RHONY for season 16 as a friend of the cast.
• Radziwill said nothing happened at the dinner and that she and Maxwell later “drifted apart.”

“I get a call on my little Nokia phone from the Duke of York,” Carole Radziwill recalled.

The call, she said, came about half an hour after Ghislaine Maxwell phoned to offer her a dinner. Radziwill shared the story on the Oct. 13 episode of The Real Housewives of New York City.

Castmates had pressed her about Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021, and about her name appearing in the Epstein files earlier this year. Radziwill, 63, returned to the Bravo series for season 16 as a friend of the cast.

She said Maxwell reached out while she was in London, after her husband, Anthony Radziwill, died of cancer in 1999. Radziwill first tried to decline, she said, but Maxwell kept pushing, so she agreed.

The evening went nowhere, according to Radziwill, and she later drifted away from Maxwell. Andrew, then the Duke of York, is now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Here’s everything to know about Carole Radziwill’s dinner with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and her past friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell.

Radziwill was widowed in 1999 when Anthony Radziwill died of cancer

Radziwill worked as a journalist and producer at ABC News from 1986 to 2002. She met her late husband there, according to The Daily Beast.

Anthony Radziwill, a fellow ABC News producer and a cousin of John F. Kennedy Jr., died of cancer on Aug. 10, 1999. He was 40. Another widow’s story, that of Lisa Cimorelli, Chad Gilbert’s wife, is covered in our explainer.

Radziwill published the memoir What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love in 2005. Fox News reported that Maxwell is credited as the photographer of her author photo. Another celebrity memoir is also heading to screen: Britney Spears’ The Woman in Me is becoming a movie.

Maxwell called with a dinner offer after hearing about Anthony’s death

Radziwill said Maxwell, a British socialite, phoned her with an offer: “Let me have my friends take you out to dinner.”

Radziwill said she knew Maxwell through mutual friends and mostly saw her at parties and group events. That account comes from a recap of the episode.

Maxwell was convicted in December 2021 of sex trafficking of a minor and sentenced to 20 years in June 2022, Fox News reported.

Andrew phoned within half an hour, and they went to dinner

Radziwill said Andrew called roughly 30 minutes after Maxwell did. She said she and Andrew then had dinner.

Castmate Daisy Toye asked whether anything romantic had happened. Radziwill said nothing had, describing the evening as “kind of unmemorable.”

Andrew was stripped of his honours, styles and royal titles in October 2025 amid continued controversy over his Epstein ties. He is now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Maxwell later helped Radziwill land a Glamour interview with Andrew

Radziwill told The New York Times that Maxwell once helped arrange an introduction to Andrew for a magazine interview, Fox News reported.

The interview was for her “Lunch Date” column in Glamour, a celebrity feature she wrote in the early 2000s. She said she was friends with Maxwell for five or six years in that period.

Radziwill’s name surfaced in the Epstein files this year

Radziwill’s name appears in a batch of Epstein-related documents made public in recent months, Fox News reported. The files include emails between her and Maxwell.

Fox noted that being named in the documents does not imply wrongdoing.

In a March 26 interview with The New York Times, she said, “Imagine knowing someone… and then they turn out to be, like, a monster.”

She said she never knew Epstein, though she recalled seeing him at a cocktail party at Maxwell’s home. Maxwell never mentioned him, she said.

Radziwill took questions about Maxwell from castmates on Oct. 13

The conversation unfolded on Erika Hammond’s private island, according to Just Jared. Castmate Sai de Silva asked whether Radziwill had ever visited Epstein’s island. She said she had not.

Sai also asked how she met Maxwell and how they stopped speaking. Radziwill said they “drifted apart,” and described Maxwell as a social climber drawn to money and power, Just Jared reported.

Radziwill told the women she knew nothing about the abuse and trafficking at the time, according to a Hollywood Outbreak recap. She has since published a new Substack essay on the episode, with an excerpt shared exclusively with People.