Key witness at Ghislaine Maxwell's trial claims Virginia Giuffre told her she slept with Prince Andrew, says report

• Epstein accuser Carolyn Andriano claimed that Virginia Giuffre told her she slept with Prince Andrew in 2001.
• Giuffre is contesting a lawsuit against the British royal for sexually assaulting her when she was 17.

Virginia Giuffre told a fellow Jeffrey Epstein accuser that she slept with Prince Andrew when she was underage, a report says.

Carolyn Andriano, a key witness in Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell's trial, waived her right to anonymity and told The Daily Mail about her conversation with Giuffre.

Giuffre sued Prince Andrew last August, accusing the British royal of sexual assaulting her when she was 17. The prince strenuously denies the charges.

Andriano told the paper that Giuffre texted her in March 2001 to say she was going for dinner with Prince Andrew, Maxwell, and Epstein in London.

In Florida, Andriano claims Giuffre showed the now-infamous photograph with the prince and said she had sex with him, the paper reports.

"I asked her if she'd been to the palace. And she said, 'I got to sleep with him,'" Andriano told the paper.

"I said, 'What? You're fucking with me,' and she said, 'no, I got to sleep with him.' She didn't seem upset about it. She thought it was pretty cool," Andriano said.

Andriano said that Giuffre seemed to be excited to meet Prince Andrew because he was famous.

"Virginia just couldn't believe it. Maxwell had told her she had a surprise for her, and I guess the surprise was Prince Andrew. She was excited. I guess when you're meeting somebody that famous, I would have been excited too," Andriano told The Daily Mail.

Carolyn Andriano told The Daily Mail that Giuffre recruited her into Epstein and Maxwell's sexual abuse "pyramid scheme," which she was involved in between the ages of 14 to 17.

She gave testimony at Maxwell's sex trafficking trial last month, and Maxwell was found guilty of five charges.

Andriano, 35, said she had decided to waive her right to anonymity because "I want all young women to know what happened to me when I was a teenager and how it has affected my life."

Andriano's is the first independent account of Giuffre previously discussing her encounter with Prince Andrew.

The conversation in 2001 would have taken place ten years before Giuffre went public with the allegations.

The Daily Mail said it had not paid Andriano for the interview. Prince Andrew declined to comment on the story when approached by the newspaper.

Prince Andrew's lawyers have been fighting to dismiss Giuffre's lawsuit in court. A decision on whether he will face a full civil trial is expected soon.