Sitting across from the handsome, shy financier on their first date, Ghislaine Maxwell could hardly take her eyes off the large ketchup stain on his tie.
For the Oxford-educated socialite, whose biological clock was ticking, Jeffrey Epstein seemed the perfect catch, a man she could ‘get married and have children with’.
But, as Ghislaine sensationally revealed over nine hours of taped interviews with the US Deputy Attorney General, that innocent first meeting would plunge her into a sordid world of depraved sex – with her lover quickly rejecting her in favour of ever-younger girls.
Even after they slept together for the first time, Epstein humiliated her by ‘rejecting’ her for the next nine months, claiming he suffered from erectile dysfunction, something she later learned was a lie.
He also pumped himself full of testosterone, the male hormone, which made him ‘mean and angry’, would masturbate in front of her and slept with hundreds of girls while Ghislaine shared his bed as ‘friends with benefits’.
After a decade of ‘booty calls’ and travelling the world running his estates, watching him live a ‘Sex and the City’ life surrounded by girls – many of whom would later claim he raped and abused them – Ghislaine would come to the conclusion: ‘He never loved me and I wasn’t his type.’
The full extraordinary story of how the privileged daughter of disgraced newspaper baron Robert Maxwell met the paedophile who would land her in jail for 20 years is compelling – and even more so when heard in the modulated upper-crust voice of a woman one victim called ‘Mary Poppins’.
‘She spoke like the Queen, she was so English and prim, like a real-life Mary Poppins. It made me trust her,’ Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre said.
As Ghislaine sensationally revealed over nine hours of taped interviews with the US Deputy Attorney General, that innocent first meeting would plunge her into a sordid world of depraved sex – with her lover quickly rejecting her in favour of ever-younger girls
Pictured: Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein posing during a party at the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida
Epstein offered her $25,000 a year to run his estates, which would eventually come to include a mansion in Palm Beach, a private Caribbean island, a penthouse in Paris, a sprawling ranch in New Mexico and New York’s biggest private home on 71st Street in Manhattan
In the hours of tapes released late on Friday, Ghislaine broke her silence on her ten-year romance with the billionaire financier, revealing how she arrived in New York in 1991 shortly before the death of her father.
Ghislaine said: ‘A girlfriend of mine said: “I’ve got a guy for you.” And I was like, “Who is it?” And she goes, “He’s been dating my sister, you’ll love him. He’s looking for a wife.”
‘I’m edging towards 30. That’s a very important moment for a girl to think about things.
‘I met him in his offices on Madison Garden. I think the most memorable thing I can think about was that he was wearing a tie which he didn’t often do. It had a giant, seems like a ketchup stain on it. So I was like, wow, OK. And that was how we met.’
When Robert Maxwell died in disgrace later that year – after falling from his yacht as he was investigated for plundering millions from his company’s pension fund – Ghislaine was ostracised by London society and returned to New York.
Epstein quickly offered her a job, using her connections to find him properties to buy and relying on her exquisite taste to decorate them with antiques and finery.
The former maths teacher was building his fortune on Wall Street but was ‘gauche’, with Ghislaine saying he humiliated her sexually from the start.
She said: ‘In 1992, I slept with him one time and I was like, whoa, that’s it. We’re going to be dating because that’s how I thought.
In the hours of tapes released late on Friday, Ghislaine broke her silence on her ten-year romance with the billionaire financier, revealing how she arrived in New York in 1991 shortly before the death of her father
Ghislaine said she loved Epstein and believed they would ‘marry and have children’ one day – but quickly discovered she was not the only one
Throughout the two-day interview with US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, which took place last month in Tallahassee Federal Court, Ghislaine insisted she was never aware of Epstein’s ‘depravity’ for young girls
‘I felt if you slept with someone you were dating them. That’s the world I came from. But then we didn’t sleep together again for nine months.
‘He told me he had a heart condition which meant he didn’t have intercourse a lot, which suited me fine because I actually do have a medical condition which precludes me having a lot of intercourse.’
Ghislaine rented Epstein a New York townhouse which was the former Iranian Embassy. Meanwhile, she was broke and living in a ‘tiny 10ft by 10ft’ apartment.
Epstein offered her $25,000 a year to run his estates, which would eventually come to include a mansion in Palm Beach, a private Caribbean island, a penthouse in Paris, a sprawling ranch in New Mexico and New York’s biggest private home on 71st Street in Manhattan.
Her salary would eventually increase to $250,000 a year and she would move into her own brownstone in New York.
Ghislaine said she loved Epstein and believed they would ‘marry and have children’ one day – but quickly discovered she was not the only one.
The financier would never give her a key to his New York home and continued to see girlfriends such as former Miss Sweden, Eva Andersson, until around 1993.
As Epstein’s fortune grew – he committed suicide in jail in 2019, leaving a staggering $550 million in the bank – the couple entered the jet-set world of the super-rich.
Ghislaine visited spas to recruit massage therapists but insists that she was never part of his depraved world
Ghislaine told of flights aboard Epstein’s private jet – dubbed ‘the Lolita Express’ – to Africa, Europe and Latin America with ‘good friend’ former US President Bill Clinton and actor Kevin Spacey. She went hunting for dinosaur bones with Donald Trump’s Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, met Fidel Castro in Cuba, flew a Black Hawk helicopter with the president of Colombia and went to lavish parties around the globe, including ones with Prince Andrew at Balmoral and Windsor Castle.
On one memorable occasion, they visited the Vatican in Rome and she was allowed to hold a letter written by Henry VIII asking the Pope for a divorce.
There were parties with supermodel Naomi Campbell and dinners with Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Elon Musk.
She was invited by Hillary Clinton to pop into the couple’s home in Chappaqua in upstate New York because she was ‘passing by’.
Throughout the two-day interview with US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, which took place last month in Tallahassee Federal Court, Ghislaine insisted she was never aware of Epstein’s ‘depravity’ for young girls.
She said: ‘I never saw it, never. In the entire time I was with him no one ever reported it to me or came to me and said anything inappropriate happened. I never saw a tear. I never saw any of that.
‘I want to be clear that had anybody ever reported anything illegal I would’ve immediately done something. I never saw what I would characterise as a child come to give him a massage and going upstairs.’
Epstein eventually asked her to move out of his Palm Beach house and she described his lifestyle as like ‘Sex and the City’.
Maxwell told Mr Blanche her goal, for her ‘self-esteem’, was to become financially independent of Epstein
Many of Epstein’s child victims say they were brought in under the pretence of giving him a massage only to be sexually assaulted and raped
She said: ‘There are always these women around and men who like it. I knew he liked other forms of sexual activities.’
Crudely, she said he would masturbate in front of her. As their love life dwindled to what she called ‘friends with benefits’, Epstein demanded she find him masseuses.
She said: ‘Epstein… he loved massages. And if I met someone I thought was a good masseuse, I introduced them. He would get bored with a masseuse and would say “Find me a new masseuse.”‘
She described Epstein’s sexual life as a ‘slide’ where one massage a day turned into two – then more.
Ghislaine visited spas to recruit massage therapists but insists that she was never part of his depraved world. Many of Epstein’s child victims say they were brought in under the pretence of giving him a massage only to be sexually assaulted and raped.
In a stunning admission, Ghislaine said: ‘I do believe that Epstein did a lot, not all, but some of what he’s accused of.
‘I’m not here to defend him in any respect. However the man I met and the man he became, I believe that there is a progression.
‘I think someone who has an interest… in underage people is obviously someone who is unwell. But I don’t think you wake up one day and start doing what he’s accused of.
Pictured: Jeffrey Epstein’s home in New York. Ghislaine rented Epstein a New York townhouse which was the former Iranian Embassy
Ghislaine told of flights aboard Epstein’s private jet – dubbed ‘the Lolita Express’ – to Africa, Europe and Latin America with ‘good friend’ former US President Bill Clinton and actor Kevin Spacey
‘He started doing testosterone and that altered his character. He became more aggressive.’
She claimed she was ‘naive’, adding: ‘I started to suspect that he was not faithful. Seems ludicrous but that’s what I thought. When I didn’t have sex with him after that first time and it took so long, I asked him, “Was it me?” And he told me it was him.
‘I’m very bright. I’ve had an excellent education. I’d had boyfriends but I had never understood that someone would lie to me about it. I didn’t have a frame of context of life experience where somebody would be so manipulative and devious with me.’
Far from having erectile dysfunction, Ghislaine said Epstein, in fact, suffered from priapism, a condition which gives a man a continuous erection.
Despite her insistence she never knew about the underage girls, Ghislaine’s mask appeared to slip when she admitted: ‘I like people my age or older and I don’t find the society, or the companionship of younger people is… that enjoyable. I didn’t like the company he chose to be with.’
But she lived in hope saying: ‘I had wanted to get married and have children. And Epstein had encouraged me to believe that would happen… certainly by the mid to late 1990s.’ She added Epstein was ‘basically my life’.
But when the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, brought down the World Trade Centre and she rang Epstein for comfort, he refused to see her. She recalled bitterly: ‘If you’re not going to be there for someone on 9/11, you’re never going to be there. For me, that was the line’s end.’
Despite their break-up – Ghislaine would go on to date billionaire Ted Waitt – she remained in Epstein’s life, managing his properties, even after he was convicted on child sex charges in 2008. It would be a decision that would ultimately land her behind bars.
Ghislaine’s love story with Epstein, which started so innocently and with such hope, ended up costing her everything – including her freedom.
