Virginia Giuffre Thought It Was 'Cool' to Sleep With Prince Andrew, Epstein Sex Slave Claims

07:03 GMT, 8 January 2022
© REUTERS / SHANNON STAPLETON / FILE PHOTO: Lawyer David Boies arrives with his client Virginia Giuffre for hearing in the criminal case against Jeffrey Epstein, at Federal Court in New York
Max Gorbachev
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Mrs Giuffre, 38, claims she was forced into an intimate relationship with Prince Andrew, who allegedly slept with her at least three times. The Duke of York has categorically denied the accusations and said he had no recollection of meeting the woman.
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Virginia Giuffre, who has accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault, "thought it was pretty cool" that she had slept with the royal, said one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims Carolyn Andriano.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Mrs Andriano, who recently testified in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, spoke about her harrowing ordeal as Epstein’s sex slave and described her relationship with Virginia Giuffre.

She recalls a point in 2001 when 17-year-old Giuffre sent her the following message:

"You'll never guess who I'm with..."

"Who", the 14-year-old Andriano replied quickly.

"I'm in London with Jeffrey [Epstein] and [Ghislaine] Maxwell and Prince Andrew", Giuffre replied, as per Andriano.

Carolyn admits she didn’t believe her older friend and deemed the remark was "far-fetched".

But then a week after the exchange, Giuffre met her friend and allegedly substantiated her claim.

According to Andriano, the 17-year-old Giuffre showed her the now-infamous image depicting Prince Andrew with his hand around Giuffre’s waist and Ghislaine Maxwell standing in the background.

The 35-year-old says she doesn’t remember whether it was a digital image or printed one.

'She Deserves No Sympathy'

Last August, Virginia Giuffre filed a civil lawsuit against Prince Andrew in New York seeking "accountability" from the royal and demanding an unspecified amount in damages from him.

Carolyn Andriano claims that back in 2001, Virginia Giuffre didn’t feel bad about the intimate relationship with the royal.

"I asked her if she'd been to the palace. And she said 'I got to sleep with him'. I said 'What? You're f**king 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", Carolyn Andriano said, adding that Giuffre asked her "never" to talk about it again.

Although the 35-year-old said she believes that Prince Andrew had a sexual relationship with the underage Virginia Giuffre, she doesn’t feel sympathy for her then teenage acquaintance.

Mrs Andriano claims Giuffre lured her into the hands of Jeffrey Epstein when she was just 14. The US financier was charged with running a sex trafficking network of minors in 2019, but didn’t live to see trial – he was found hanged in his prison cell.

Epstein’s accomplice British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who groomed young women and girls for him, was recently found guilty on five out of six counts, including the most serious charge – sex trafficking of a minor.
Carolyn Andriano testified anonymously during the trial, telling the court about her experience of living in sexual servitude. Epstein didn’t have full sex with her, but sexually assaulted Andriano.

Discussing Virginia Giuffre's lawsuit against Prince Andrew, she said she doesn’t believe Giuffre "deserves any compensation".

"I don't think she was coerced into doing anything. I don't think Virginia deserves anything less than what Maxwell is getting because she trafficked me into a world of spiralling downward slopes and it has taken my husband John 12 long years to get me to love myself again", she said.

Commenting on her decision to reveal her identity, Mrs Andriano says she did so because she wants girls and young women to know about the dangers that exist in this world.

"I'm not ashamed at being a victim of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. For other girls that have been victimised, I want them to know that it is OK to come out and tell somebody – even if you don't want to be identified – and the sooner the better. I want people to know these terrible things have happened to me and that I am a survivor. I want to let the other victims know, there's no timeframe on when you can talk about it, to get help. I'm very happy being a wife and a mother and I want to show people how the tragedies in my life did not stop me. I'm overcoming them", she said.

Mrs Andriano’s interview is likely to add pressure on Prince Andrew. The Duke of York has categorically denied Virginia Giuffre’s accusations, saying he had never met her. His statement has been contested by two individuals – a woman claims to have seen him dancing with the young Giuffre at a London nightclub, while Jeffrey Epstein’s former employee allegedly saw the two together on the financier’s private island.

The royal’s legal team is now fighting to have the lawsuit dismissed. They argue that it should be thrown out because Giuffre has not provided enough specifics about the purported sexual abuse, as well as due to the fact that she previously reached a settlement with Jeffrey Epstein, which saw the financier pay her $500,000 and agree to forfeit the right to sue any "other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant".

Judge Lewis Kaplan said on Tuesday he would decide whether the case should go to trial "pretty soon".
SocietyUSPrince AndrewJeffrey Epsteinsexual abuseVirginia Roberts Giuffre
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