SWEDEN’S Princess Sofia has been swept into the Jeffrey Epstein scandal after her own family admitted she met the paeodophile financier several times – years before joining the royal family.
Long before she became Princess of Sweden, Sofia Hellqvist was a lingerie model, reality TV star and a familiar name on New York’s party scene.
Now the palace has confirmed she crossed paths with Epstein in 2005 – meetings that happened a full decade before she married Prince Carl Philip.
Leaked emails, published by nonprofit site ddosecrets.com and reported by the Swedish news outlet Dagens Nyheter, reveal Epstein even invited the then-aspiring actress to his notorious private island in the Caribbean.
He allegedly offered her and a friend spots at an acting school too.
According to the reports, the pair were introduced multiple times by a Swedish businesswoman who acted as Sofia’s mentor – and who later attended her royal wedding.
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One email from December 18, 2005, shows the businesswoman pitching Sofia directly to Epstein.
“This is Sofia, an aspiring actress who just arrived in New York. She’s the girl I told you about before I left, who I thought you might like to meet. Maybe we can visit before you go on holiday?”
She even attached a photo of the then-21-year-old model.
Epstein replied: “I’m in the Caribbean. Does she want to come for a couple of days? I’ll send a ticket,” he wrote — three years before his 2008 conviction for procuring a child for prostitution.
The royal family insists Sofia never accepted the invitation to Little St James, Epstein’s island where multiple women, including Virginia Giuffre, say they were abused.
But they have refused to explain where or why the princess met Epstein in the first place.
Sofia, now 41, was a topless model, yoga instructor and charity co-founder before marrying Carl Philip, now 46 and third in line to the throne.
She shot to fame on reality series Paradise Hotel in 2005 before moving to New York to chase acting and modelling work.
Her glamorous blog posts chronicled celebrity-packed parties, exclusive events and her nightlife adventures.
She married the prince in 2015 in a lavish ceremony at Stockholm’s Royal Palace – after years of media scrutiny over her past.
More emails surfaced from early 2006, showing Epstein’s assistant chasing the businesswoman about Sofia.
“Jeffrey wonders what really happened with Camilla. Did you tell her she has a ticket to New York anytime she wants?”
The businesswoman clarified who he meant.
“I think he means Sofia, the little beautiful dark-haired girl who had her friend Camilla with her,” she wrote in the email cited by Dagens Nyheter.
She added that Epstein had offered both women acting school places, but visa problems got in the way – prompting the pair to contact him.
German outlet Bild reported that one of Sofia’s encounters with Epstein took place at a dinner party hosted at his Upper East Side mansion.
The palace insists all of this happened before his 2008 conviction.
“Princess Sofia has been introduced to the person in question on a few occasions around 2005,” the royal family said.
Sofia’s modelling shots – including topless photos with a live boa constrictor – resurfaced in the run-up to her royal wedding, as did clips of her time on Paradise Hotel.
She said publicly she had moved on from that chapter of her life.
Five years after the reality show, she met Prince Carl Philip in a Stockholm nightclub – and the couple were inseparable within a year.
They later moved into Villa Solbacken on Djurgården, where they still live.
When concerns were raised over her past, the palace highlighted her charity work, including the organisation she co-founded in 2010, Project Playground, which supports vulnerable children in South Africa.
The revelations come at a delicate moment for the princess – just months after she gave birth to her daughter, Princess Ines, in February.
She is said to be staying at a family retreat with her newborn.
The palace says Sofia had no contact with Epstein after 2005.
They also addressed the acting school claims: “Princess Sofia has neither applied for nor attended any form of acting training,” the family stated.
Sofia’s friend Camilla also rejected any suggestion she was interested in Epstein’s offers.
“Thank God, you know when the truth has come out. I was 22 years old. It’s really unpleasant to think what could have happened,” she told Dagens Nyheter.
“He probably mostly wanted to throw out an offer, to show that he could and had power and money.”
Epstein died in 2019 in a New York jail while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.
The Swedish Royal Court has not responded to the Daily Mail’s request for comment.