Let’s be honest; the Epstein Scandal, and particularly the way in which the media have reported it to you over the years, is a murky, confusing mess. The maelstrom of information and disinformation has naturally left most people scratching their heads in blithering bemusement.

So let me help remedy that by injecting some clarity and context into the chaos.

This is the third instalment of my series, Everything Epstein, running you through the entire scandal (including my exclusive interviews with key witnesses) in chronological order, from the very beginning. By the time you’ve finished reading it, you’ll be more educated on the scandal than the majority of the general public and practically every journalist. You’ll only be able to find the full truth here on my Substack (full access is just a few dollars/pounds a month to support my ongoing independent work).

In case you missed the first two parts of the series, you can read them below:

Today, let’s take a deep dive into how Ghislaine met Jeffrey, what their relationship entailed, and the very first allegations made against them…

Accounts differ on when exactly the introduction of Ghislaine Maxwell to Jeffrey Epstein was made, and by whom. According to Jeffrey’s former business partner, Steven Hoffenberg (who, along with Jeffrey, was arrested for fraud - read Epstein’s origin story above for more details), Robert Maxwell himself introduced his daughter to him in the late 1980s.

The Times claimed that the pair met in the 1990s at a New York party following Ghislaine’s difficult break-up with Count Gianfranco Cicogna Mozzoni, her first serious boyfriend.

Interviews conducted by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche with Ghislaine in prison in July 2025, however, revealed the truth. She told investigators that she first met Jeffrey during a visit to his office on Madison Avenue in New York.

It was 1991, and Ghislaine was in the process of moving from London to New York. “A girlfriend of mine said, ‘I’ve got’—you know, as your girlfriends do—‘I’ve got a guy for you to meet. . . . You’ll love him. He’s looking for a wife,’” she told Blanche. “I’m edging towards thirty. I don’t need to tell you guys, that’s a very important moment for a girl to, like, think about important things.”

Jeffrey had led her to believe they might get married, she continued to recall. “Certainly by the mid to late nineties, I knew the marriage part was never going to happen,” she added. “But I did think that we might have a child, which is what I had really wanted.”

Their first encounter would lead Ghislaine on a completely different course in life: a brief romantic relationship with a multi-millionaire, a job managing his many properties, years of travelling the world - and, ultimately, a prison sentence.

“The first time I ever remember hearing about Jeffrey Epstein was Ghislaine inviting me to a party she was holding for her mother in New York,” her former friend Christopher Mason recalled. “And she explained that it was in the house of this guy she was dating, Jeffrey. The story Ghislaine told over and over again was that you didn’t have a chance of Jeffrey taking you on as a client if you had less than a billion dollars to invest. That was part of the mystique of the man that she was dating. She seemed deeply, genuinely in love with him.” 

 Euan Rellie recounted his first impression of Jeffrey on meeting him at one of Ghislaine and Jeffrey’s many social gatherings. “He was clearly talented, successful, well-dressed, handsome,” he said, “but he made extraordinarily little effort, frankly, as a host. It was an odd dichotomy between the two of them, with Ghislaine flitting around making everybody comfortable, getting drinks, champagne, whatever you wanted. Ghislaine kind of orchestrated the waiters bringing people snacks and so on.”

“She knew how to be a hostess in a grand old-fashioned way,” Petronella Wyatt remembers. “And I think somebody like Epstein, who was very much new money, was attracted to this because he probably saw her as upper-class, English accent, been to Oxford, wears designer clothes, has lots of well-known friends. Suddenly, they were together at all these smart parties, all the expensive parties, seemingly as a couple.” 

 “She would be quite touchy-feely with him,” said Euan Rellie. “She would touch his elbow, touch his shoulder, and they seemed intimate. We used to gossip about Jeffrey and Ghislaine to try to make sense of this slightly odd relationship. It was a rather strange mixture of facets.” 

“It wasn’t a normal relationship,” Petronella Wyatt concurred. “But it was obviously the kind of relationship she needed. She couldn’t feel secure without money, and he was a good catch for her financially. They became totally dependent on each other in a weird way.” 

 Lady Victoria Hervey, an outspoken defender of Prince Andrew, whom I’d later meet for the first time in a hotel restaurant near Hyde Park, recalled those early days of the relationship vividly. “She was definitely a flirtatious character, for sure,” she said in an interview with Netflix. “She exuded this mysterious air about her. And whenever you saw Ghislaine, it was Jeffrey this and Jeffrey that, and all she spoke about was him. You got this feeling like she was just so loyal to him.”   

 The relationship, at least in the sense of romance, doesn’t appear to have lingered past its early jet-setting, champagne-swigging honeymoon phase. Eventually it fizzled out, morphing into a burred mix of friendship, work, and the hint of something more.

“Ghislaine was in love with Jeffrey,” said Euan. “She was so spellbound by him, and my impression was she would have done anything for him. But she also played this kind of hybrid role as social fixer, social secretary. And the notion was that they had dated some time in the late 90s but had stopped, and now they were best friends.” 

As Epstein accuser Rina Oh once told me, women were naive to ever think that Jeffrey was the type of man who would ever consider settling down (you can listen to one of my interviews with Rina below):

Before he’d met Ghislaine, he’d already worked his way through a throng of women, only getting into semi-relationships with a few of them.

One of the earliest was Lynne Greenburg.

Not long after Epstein left teaching and began his role at Bear Stearns, the firm’s chief executive officer, Alan Greenberg, invited him to dinner at his home and placed him beside his 20-year-old daughter, Lynne. Lynne later said she suspected the seating arrangement was deliberate. The two connected immediately and began a relationship.

But around the same time, Jeffrey was also rumoured to be dating Ana Obregon. Born in Madrid in 1955, she came from a wealthy Spanish family, her father being a successful real-estate developer and businessman. During the 1980s and 1990s, Ana became one of Spain’s best-known celebrities, appearing in films, television series, magazine covers, and later hosting major television programs and New Year’s Eve broadcasts.

The pair met through a mutual friend around 1982 while she was living partly in New York and studying acting while trying to build an international career. Jeffrey was then a young Wall Street figure who had recently left Bear Stearns and was beginning to establish himself as an independent financial consultant. Through Obregón and her family, he was introduced to wealthy Spanish families who had lost money in the collapse of Drysdale Government Securities. Several reports have suggested that helping recover some of those funds helped him establish his reputation and earn substantial fees during the early years of his financial career (he would later go on to be arrested for alleged fraud, before going on to steal millions of dollars from one of his famous clients, Leslie Wexner).

He also dated Patricia Schmidt, another employee at Bear Stearns.

But Patricia soon discovered she wasn’t the only romantic interest in his life - and that Lynne and Ana weren’t the only rival love interests. In 2025, the New York Times interviewed Schmidt and released some of her contemporary diary entries. In them, she described having sex with Jeffrey, but noted that he preferred to kiss and cuddle, adding that he was “like a little boy almost”.

You can read some of her contemporary diary entries below.

She also wrote that, on one night at around 1am, she arrived at Jeffrey’s apartment to find him speaking on the phone to another woman, Eva Andersson.

Eva was no mere fling. Evidence and witness recollections suggest Jeffrey was likely truly in love with her (though he continued to have sexual relationships with other women during their 11 year relationship).

Eva won Miss Sweden in 1980, finished as a runner-up in the Miss Universe competition, was signed by Ford Models, and became a successful international model before later attending medical school and becoming a physician. She ultimately earned an MD from UCLA and later founded the Dubin Breast Center in New York.

Their relationship began around 1981 and lasted until 1990, after which they remained close friends, with Jeffrey even being made the godfather of Andersson’s daughter (after leaving Jeffrey, she married billionaire hedge fund manager Glen Dubin).

Eva was still in Jeffrey’s life when Jeffrey met Ghislaine. So too, we now know, were a large number of other women - most of them yacht girls, models and prostitutes. In New York he would hire hookers from high-end escorting agencies, inviting some of them onto his island to participate in bacchanalian weekend trips filled with sun, jet-skiing, and massages with happy endings. At his property in Paris, and his home in West Palm, he’d also satisfy his out-of-control lust with a string of models and massage parlour girls.

It was clear that Ghislaine wouldn’t get what she wanted out of Jeffrey. He was never going to be the marrying type.

“I think she [Ghislaine] was too old for Jeffrey,” said Petronella Wyatt. “He really liked much younger girls. But there was this bond between them. And she needed money. She couldn’t feel secure without Epstein’s money. It felt like she was doing the job of a wife without having any intimate relationship with him anymore.”

Of their relationship, Ghislaine’s brother Ian told me: “Some journalists, without any evidence, have tried to claim my father met Epstein before he died, and that’s how the connection with Ghislaine was established. The BBC documentary, The House of Maxwell, surmised that somehow the pension funds were siphoned off and Epstein then laundered them. I mean, it’s just false, ludicrous, but I guess it makes for very good television. There’s been a lot of suggestion that somehow my father had introduced the two of them. I know that not to be the case. I don’t actually know who did introduce Ghislaine to Jeffrey, or precisely when that took place – I would say 1991 or early ’92. But by early ’93, we knew that she was in a new relationship. But I was too engaged in fighting the legal case, on my defence, and my marriage at the time was falling to bits. It was just not a good time for me, so I didn’t have much of a real insight into her relationship with Jeffrey, except that it existed. She seemed happy.” 

 Ian then placed his hands together and leaned forward in his chair.

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This is the second part of my new series, Everything Epstein, where I take you on a chronological journey from the very beginning, right up to Epstein’s death, and beyond.

With exclusive interviews with key witnesses, and insight into the case that you won’t find anywhere else, by the end of reading it, I’m certain that you’ll be more clued-up on the scandal than 99% of the general public (and 100% of the media).

If you missed part one, you can read it below - Epstein’s curious, at times shocking origin story.

A year before I ever set foot in New York, I’d been on one of my regular visits to London. The person I’d planned to meet for lunch, Michael (not his real name), had been corresponding back and forth with me, mostly through email, for over a year. I’d first contacted him to get a better understanding of Ghislaine Maxwell, with whom he’d enjoyed a friendly relationship on London’s elite social scene. I wasn’t so much interested in the monster portrayed in the media. I wanted to learn about the human behind the headlines.

We met in a small Italian deli near Kensington Gardens, a vast park I fondly remember strolling through with my Bermondsey-born grandmother after begging her to show me the statue of Peter Pan. We sat, cramped at one of the small tables, businessmen and locals scurrying in and out around us as I unclipped my briefcase, removed some pre-written questions, a wad of printed sheets, and placed them on the table with a light thud.

“Oh,” he seemed surprised, moving his eyes from the paperwork to the clock above the counter, rightly guessing that the interview wouldn’t be as short as he’d envisaged or perhaps hoped. “I suppose we’d best get cracking”. Over the next couple of hours, he told me he had first met Ghislaine in 2010, the pair introduced by a mutual friend, an LA film producer.

“I was living and working in LA at the time,” he told me. “We’d meet up whenever she was over and would go for dinner or drinks. Then we met up a few times in New York. I went to a Christmas party one year, with some friends of hers in Chelsea, all nice people. Dame Vivian Duffield and others were there, and everyone was happy to see her. That’s the thing about Ghislaine, she has room presence. When she walks into a room, she lights it up. She’s witty, gregarious, she was always somebody who would befriend anyone, a politician and a supermodel all on the same night. She was lovely, warm and funny, very interesting to be with and always full of stories. Not precious or high maintenance in any way. The monster they depict her to be in the newspapers has no resemblance to the real Ghislaine at all.”

He told me he believes Jeffrey didn’t commit suicide. He surmised that he was murdered, though he had no idea who by. And, upon hearing the news that his former friend had, following Jeffrey’s death, suddenly become a named suspect, Michael said he was in a state of “shock and bewilderment”, immediately becoming fearful for her safety. So staunch in his belief of her innocence was he that he even wrote her a character reference in the hope it would be used by her attorneys when requesting bail. “I believed in her innocence then, and I still do now,” he said. “The evidence that was presented, and the witnesses themselves, don’t appear credible.”

Like most people I’ve interviewed, his focus quickly shifted to the most vocal of her accusers. “Virginia Giuffre’s a fabricator,” he said, frowns forming on his forehead. “A loudmouth. A hustler.”

He told me he’d been following my investigation closely. “You’re doing a brilliant job in getting to the truth. I think that you need to keep focusing on the victims,” he added, his fingers making inverted comma marks in the air. “Their credibility, or lack of, is ultimately what will exonerate Ghislaine.”

Though deploring any form of sexual abuse and believing the harrowing abuse stories of numerous victims of Epstein, I had highlighted major discrepancies and flat-out fabrications in some of the accusers’ claims. And I was incredibly keen to learn more about all the characters involved and to understand Ghislaine and her potential role as best as I could. Michael told me I would need to become educated on her background.  

In the following months and years to come, I would find myself frequently speaking to some of Maxwell’s siblings.

Ghislaine’s mother, Elisabeth Maxwell (nee Meynard), was of aristocratic stock. A Huguenot descendant whose distant lineage boasted French kings, her father, the mayor of a small French village, owned a profitable silk-weaving factory that supported his two daughters comfortably enough to send a nine-year-old Elisabeth to England, where she attended a convent in Birmingham before returning to her homeland in 1932 and studying law.

Following the liberation of Paris, whilst working as a translator, she was introduced to Czechoslovakian-born British Army Captain Robert Maxwell.

Robert wasn’t in fact named Robert at all. His birthname was Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch. Throughout the war he went by numerous aliases, including Ivan du Maurier, before settling upon Ian Robert Maxwell in 1948 (for some reason, everyone dropped his first name, Ian, altogether, referring to him only as ‘Robert’ or, more often, ‘Bob’).

Awarded the Military Cross for bravely storming a Nazi machine gun nest, Maxwell, an Orthodox Jew, had returned from the war to discover that many of his relatives had been murdered in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. The pair married on March 15th, 1945. Living in Maisons-Laffitte, part of the affluent outer suburbs of northwestern Paris, the children would soon fill the expanding family’s household, most of them delivered by Elisabeth’s sister Yvonne, an obstetrician described to me by one of the Maxwell siblings as “an extraordinary woman, and one of the very rare women to become and obstetrician after the war and, even rarer, to own her own clinic”.

Ghislaine was born on a crisp Christmas Day morning in 1961. 

“It’s important that you understand we were originally nine in this family,” Ian Maxwell, a rather friendly and likeable man of 68 told me. “There was our eldest brother, Michael, and there was a little girl, Karine; and they died young. Karine died in 1957 at only three from leukemia, and Michael was in a terrible car crash that didn’t kill him but left him in a coma for seven years. He never recovered and sadly died. Karine was born between me and my twin sisters, and so instead of having a natural bridge, the family, in a sense, split into two because of the age gap. So Kevin and I and Ghislaine were very close as children, and my four elder brothers and sisters were very close. Then, obviously, as we grew up, we all became equally close, and we spent quite a bit of time together.”

 “I’ve got pretty clear memories of childhood with Ghislaine,” he continued. “She was a funny little thing, very funny, good sense of humour. She was in the same bedroom as Kevin and I for at least the first three years of our lives, and we have so many stories to tell. One particular occasion that sticks in my mind is that Kevin and I quickly understood that the way to shock our parents was to use swear words, which generally got a cuff around the ear, and so we thought if we could avoid cuffing, we would teach these words to Ghislaine, because she was too small to be cuffed. And one day, while Ghislaine was held in the arms of my mother, my father next to her, the head of an Oxford college came in and said: ‘And who is this adorable little thing?’, to which Ghislaine looked back at him and casually replied, ‘Piss off!’”

 “As a young child, she loved animals. She had dogs and cats, some budgies, a hamster, and a pony. My father was rich and could afford to give her these things.” 

By now, a publishing company founded by Robert Maxwell, Pergamon Press, was booming. The boy from humble beginnings, from a two-room wooden shack with earthen floors and a pit latrine, where he and his siblings would share one pair of shoes during winter, had done good; so good, in fact, that he moved the family to the company’s leased headquarters, Headington Hill Hall, a grand Italianate mansion in east Oxford. Boasting more than 50 rooms, the new family home, described by Robert as “the best council house in the country,” had hosted countless high society parties throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Attending an all-night May Day Ball there in 1878, Oscar Wilde had arrived in flamboyant style, gaudily dressed as Prince Rupert.  

 “I was very young when we moved to Headington Hill Hall, or ‘Triple H’, as we called it,” Isabel Maxwell, the entrepreneurial, warm and spirited sister of Ghislaine, told me. “We moved into it during Easter of 1961. Our mom had been fixing it up for all of the past year as it was, in our mother’s own words, from her book A Mind of My Own, ‘a Victorian mansion built in 1858 for the brewer James Morell. It was in 15 acres of wooded parkland with a magnificent view over the dreaming spires of Oxford. It was owned by Oxford City Council, who were looking for a tenant to take over this white elephant.’ 

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Its former owner, a fascinating character, has a face now less recognisable than his logo.

Twenty-eight years ago today, on the morning of July 15th, 1997, Gianni Versace stepped out of the front gates of Casa Casuarina and walked south along Ocean Drive beneath a bright Miami sky. The Mediterranean-style villa, with its coral-pink walls, mosaic courtyards, towering palms and view across from Miami Beach’s seafront, had become one of the most recognisable private homes in America. Versace had spent millions transforming the 1930s property into a lavish retreat that reflected the same extravagant vision he brought to fashion.

The designer’s destination that morning was routine. He walked to the nearby News Café, a favourite local stop, where he purchased magazines and newspapers before turning back toward home. Ocean Drive was already alive with joggers, tourists and early diners taking breakfast beside the Atlantic. Nothing appeared unusual. Nothing suggested that within minutes one of the most famous fashion designers in the world would be dead on his own front steps.

Versace’s story had begun far from the glamour of South Beach.

He was born Giovanni Maria Versace on December 2nd, 1946, in the southern Italian city of Reggio Calabria, a rugged coastal community facing Sicily across the Strait of Messina. His father, Antonio, worked as a salesman. His mother, Francesca, was a dressmaker whose workshop employed numerous seamstresses and produced custom clothing for local women. The family was not wealthy. The future designer grew up among bolts of fabric, dress forms, sewing machines, and sketches pinned to workshop walls.

Francesca’s shop became his classroom.

While other children played football in the streets, Gianni watched garments being assembled from scratch. He learned how fabric draped across the human body. He observed clients discussing cuts, colours and proportions. According to later accounts, he designed his first dress while still a child. His older brother Santo would eventually become the business mind behind the family empire, while younger sister Donatella became both muse and creative collaborator. The three siblings would build one of the most recognisable luxury brands in modern history.

Reggio Calabria had left a permanent mark on him. The region’s Greek heritage fascinated Versace from an early age. Ancient ruins, classical mythology and Mediterranean imagery would later become recurring themes in his designs. The famous Medusa logo that came to symbolise the fashion house emerged from his fascination with classical art and mythology.

In 1972, at the age of twenty-five, he left southern Italy for Milan. Fashion was already migrating north, and Milan offered opportunities unavailable in Calabria. He designed collections for established labels including Callaghan, Complice and Genny, earning a reputation for bold ideas and technical skill. By the mid-1970s his name was becoming known throughout the industry.

In 1978, backed by the Girombelli family and supported by Santo, Versace launched his own label. That same year he staged his first ready-to-wear show under his own name and opened his first boutique on Via della Spiga in Milan. Donatella joined him, helping shape the brand’s image and creative direction.

The timing was perfect. Fashion in the late 1970s and early 1980s was changing, and Versace arrived like a thunderclap. His designs rejected restraint. They embraced vivid colours, daring cuts, metal mesh fabrics, leather, gold accents and overt sexuality. Critics sometimes hated it. Customers often loved it. He once famously declared that he did not believe in good taste. The statement became a mission statement as much as a quote.

By the 1980s and 1990s, Versace had become one of the dominant figures in global fashion. His runway shows were transformed into spectacles. He forged unusually close relationships with celebrities, musicians and models. Long before fashion houses routinely depended upon celebrity culture, Versace recognised its power. He dressed Elton John, Madonna, Princess Diana, Whitney Houston and countless others. He helped elevate supermodels into international celebrities, frequently featuring Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer and Linda Evangelista together in campaigns and runway shows.

The company expanded rapidly. Accessories, fragrances, home furnishings and luxury lifestyle products followed. Hundreds of stores opened worldwide. Versace became more than one designer. It became an empire. By the time of his death, the company was generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually and operated on a global scale.

Yet on that July morning in 1997, none of that mattered.

Shortly after returning from the News Café, Versace approached the wrought-iron gates of Casa Casuarina. He unlocked them and climbed the marble steps leading toward the villa’s entrance.

A young man wearing a baseball cap approached from behind.

His name was Andrew Cunanan.

Twenty-seven years old, Cunanan had been born in California and had spent years cultivating an image of sophistication and wealth that often bore little resemblance to reality. Intelligent, charming and capable of reinventing himself depending on his audience, he moved through social circles with remarkable ease. Beneath the surface, however, his life was increasingly unstable.

By the spring of 1997, he was already one of America’s most wanted fugitives.

Exactly why Cunanan chose Versace remains one of the unresolved questions of the case. Investigators never established a definitive motive. Some theories suggested Cunanan craved notoriety. Others proposed he believed killing a globally famous figure would guarantee him a place in history. Claims that the two men knew each other, or that the pair had been sexually involved, have never been conclusively proven. Since Cunanan died before facing trial, many questions died with him.

What happened next unfolded in seconds. As Versace stood on the front steps, Cunanan pulled out a .40-calibre Taurus PT100 pistol and opened fire.

One bullet struck Versace in the back of the head.

Another struck his face and neck area.

The designer collapsed onto the marble staircase. Blood pooled ouut across the pale stone as witnesses screamed and rushed toward the scene. Among the first to reach him was his longtime partner, Antonio D’Amico, who had heard the shots from inside the villa. Emergency crews responded quickly, but the injuries were catastrophic. Versace was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:21 a.m. He was fifty years old.

News of the assassination spread around the world almost instantly. Television networks interrupted programming. Fashion houses paused operations. Celebrities issued statements of disbelief. Princess Diana, Elton John, Naomi Campbell and countless others attended his funeral. The murder felt surreal. Versace was not merely famous, he was one of the defining cultural figures of the era.

But investigators quickly realised they were not dealing with an unknown assailant. The killer had already left a trail of bodies across the United States.

Months earlier in Minneapolis, Andrew Cunanan had murdered Jeffrey Trail, a former U.S. Navy officer and close friend. Trail was beaten to death with a hammer. His body was later discovered rolled inside a rug.

Soon afterward came the murder of David Madson, an architect and Cunanan’s former romantic partner. Madson’s body was found near a lake in Minnesota. He had been shot. Investigators believed Cunanan had forced him to accompany him after Trail’s murder before ultimately killing him as well.

The insane violence escalated. In Chicago, wealthy real-estate developer Lee Miglin was tortured and murdered inside his home. Miglin suffered a brutal attack involving binding, stabbing, and severe injuries before death. His vehicle was then stolen and used by Cunanan to evade capture.

Days later, cemetery caretaker William Reese became Cunanan’s fourth known victim. Reese was shot and killed in New Jersey. Cunanan stole his pickup truck and continued moving south.

By the time Versace was murdered, federal authorities had already placed Cunanan on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. His photograph was widely circulated. Yet he remained elusive.

After killing Versace, Cunanan disappeared into Miami Beach. The manhunt became one of the largest in modern American criminal history. Federal agents, state investigators and local police flooded the city. Tips poured in from across the country. Reporters camped outside police headquarters. Helicopters circled overhead. Yet the fugitive remained hidden.

For eight days, authorities hunted him down, but to no avail. Then, on July 23, 1997, a caretaker reported suspicious activity aboard a houseboat moored in Miami Beach.

Police surrounded the vessel. They crept slowly towards it, all taking their positions, guns poised to capture him dead or alive.

But before they could enter, a single gunshot rang out and echoed across the surface of the water.

Officers kicked down the door and rushed inside, where they discovered Cunanan slumped in a chair, killed by his own hand using the same pistol he’d used to kill Versace.

The nation’s most hunted fugitive had ended his own life before investigators could question him, but the unanswered questions never disappeared.

Without a trial, there would be no sworn testimony, no cross-examination, and no definitive explanation. Debate over motive continues nearly three decades later. Some investigators believed Cunanan sought fame through infamy. Others believed his deteriorating mental state drove increasingly irrational violence. Certain details remain disputed and may never be fully resolved.

What is not disputed is Gianni Versace’s impact. Few designers changed fashion as dramatically.

He helped blur the line between fashion, celebrity culture, and entertainment. He transformed runway shows into global events. He elevated supermodels into household names. He embraced sexuality in luxury fashion at a moment when many competitors favoured restraint. He drew inspiration from ancient Greece, Byzantine art, pop culture and music, creating a visual language that remains instantly recognisable decades later.

After his death, the company survived under family leadership.

Santo Versace assumed a leading business role. Donatella became the creative force responsible for preserving and evolving the brand. The house continued expanding internationally and remained one of the world’s best-known luxury labels.

Even today, nearly thirty years after the murder on Ocean Drive, Versace’s fingerprints remain visible across fashion and popular culture. The Medusa logo appears on clothing, fragrances and accessories sold around the world. His archival designs continue to inspire new collections. Museums still mount exhibitions devoted to his work. Fashion historians routinely place him among the most influential designers of the twentieth century.

And so the anniversary returns.

Another summer sun rises over Miami Beach. Tourists still stop outside Casa Casuarina, now operating as a luxury hotel. They photograph the famous gates and the staircase where history took a violent turn. Many know the murder. Some know the fashion empire. Fewer know the boy from Reggio Calabria who learned to sew in his mother’s workshop and carried those lessons all the way to the summit of a global industry.

Twenty-eight years after those gunshots echoed across Ocean Drive, the circumstances of Gianni Versace’s death remain haunting. His legacy, however, has proved far more durable than the violence that ended his life. The killer became a grim footnote. The designer became immortal.

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Good morning/afternoon/evening to you all, depending on where you are in the world. This week I’ve been editing, resting my leg (the hamstring injury, and my stereotypically male habit of milking any injury or illness as much as humanly possible, is now much better), interviewing more witnesses in the Epstein scandal, being thankful for a brief yet anxious few days without large Russian missile attacks here in Kyiv, and typing up my findings about the identity of a woman whom Epstein roleplayed Nabokov’s Lolita with.

Regarding developments in the never-ending guilt by association-focused witch hunt, this week has been no less eventful than the last. So, let’s dive straight in and take a look at some of the headlines, injecting a little context into the chaos along the way.

Billionaire Bill Gates testified in a closed-door hearing on Wednesday, the latest high profile former associate of Epstein to be ‘summoned’ by the House Oversight Committee.

In his opening statement, Gates alleged that Epstein blackmailed him, sayinng that Epstein exploited his knowledge of Gates’ extramarital affairs with two Russian women “to pressure me to re-engage with him” (Gates had begun to sever ties with Epstein after he allegedly failed to support some of Gates’ initiatives).

The Microsoft co-founder stated his association with Epstein was transactional and focused on fundraising for global health, calling the meetings a "grave error in judgment".

It’s true that Epstein coveted scientists and famous businessmen, even funding research projects. But the reasons for doing so weren’t entirely academic. Yes, he actively sought out such connections to feed his own genuine curiosities over topics such as genetics and transhumanism - but he also cultivated a roladex of brainiacs because he 1. Liked to feel important. 2. He liked to be considered an intellectual and to be seen to be surrounded by some of the world’s greatest mind. In reality, although he was undoubtedly very talented in some areas, particularly mathematics, when it came to science, once of his former scientist pals bluntly stated that Epstein “didn’t know what he was talking about”.

It’s important to note that none of Epstein’s accusers/former sexual partners have ever accused Gates of inappropriate or illegal behaviour.

In the Epstein files, however, Epstein wrote bizarre emails to himself (sometimes pretending to be Gates’ former advisor, Boris Nikolic), in which he alleged that Gates had contracted a sexually transmitted disease following “sex with Russian girls” and that he had asked for antibiotics to "surreptitiously give" to his then wife Melinda French Gates.

“In my role as his right hand I had been asked on mulitple occassion [sic] and in hindsight, wrongly acquiesced into participating in things that have ranged from the morally inappropriate, to the ethically unsound and had been repeatedly asked to do other things that get near and potentially over the line into the illegal,” Epstein wrote as Nikolic, presumably in the hope that he could get Nikolic to release the statement himself if needed, as part of a blackmailing scheme.

Across the documents, Epstein portrays himself as holding compromising material and hints at using it as leverage, particularly in the event of a public divorce that could harm Gates’ philanthropic image.

“I am concerned that if Melinda decides as you said to file for a public divorce, the damage done to the pledge program alone would result in billions of dollars of money no longer being used for social good as Im [sic] sure that some wives and husbands would feel free to retreat from their commitments,” he wrote.

The same email alleges that Gates “begged him” to delete emails regarding “your STD, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda, and the description of your penis.”

Responding to the release of the emails, a spokesperson for Gates said that the claims were “absolutely absurd and completely false. The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein’s frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame.”

As we saw with the testimony of Sarah Kellen last week, it’s likely that we’ll have to wait at least a few days before the full transcript of his testimony is released - but his opening statement reads as follows:

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of the Committee—

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.

I am here to answer your questions about my interactions with Jeffrey Epstein and to help contribute to the Committee’s important work. I support the release of all the Epstein files and sincerely hope that, through your efforts and those of others advocating on their behalf, the survivors of Epstein’s crimes can get the justice that they deserve.

At the outset, I want to state very clearly: I never witnessed nor had any indication that Epstein was engaged in ongoing criminal conduct. I never went to his island, his ranch, or his Florida home. I have never victimized anyone. While he may have sought to foster a personal relationship, I was never interested in that and never reciprocated.

I was introduced to Epstein in 2011 through people I trusted in my professional and philanthropic work. Epstein claimed he could raise billions of dollars for global health from people for whom he provided tax and estate services. I recall being aware that Epstein had faced prior legal issues, but I did not fully understand the extent of the crimes he committed. I accepted the introduction without applying the scrutiny I should have.

For almost two decades, my full-time focus has been global health and education. I have been guided by the belief that all lives have equal value, and that every child should have the chance to live a healthy life, no matter where they were born. I have committed my resources and my time to this effort, but my wealth alone cannot fill the enormous funding gap that remains. This is why trying to encourage others of significant means to invest in global health has become such an important element of my work.

My interactions with Epstein began with a limited number of preliminary meetings—three in 2011 and two in 2012—during which I talked about the goals of my work. We began more extensive conversations in 2013 and 2014. The discussions focused on identifying potential giving structures, such as donor-advised funds, and how to enroll individuals he claimed were interested in making significant contributions. I made it clear to Epstein from the outset that he would never play a role in any of the work or receive any compensation.

In 2014, after Epstein brought together a group he described as potential donors, I realized that our prior discussions—which should have translated into meaningful philanthropic support—were a dead-end. It was clear that no one in the group was interested enough to move forward. At that point, I concluded Epstein would never deliver on his promises. I told him we would go no further and stopped communicating or meeting with him. No vehicle for charitable giving was ever created and no funds were raised. Our interactions ended in December 2014, four years before new reports in the press and unsealed court documents shed light on the extent of his crimes.

It was during the same time period that an employee was in the process of transitioning out of my private office. This employee engaged Epstein to negotiate and advise him on the terms of the separation. I did not ask—nor did I want or need—Epstein to be involved in this matter. His involvement resulted in email exchanges, calls, and meetings with members of my team and me. However, the agreement we ultimately reached was not any different from what was previously agreed upon months in advance of Epstein inserting himself.

It was after this that I learned Epstein had become aware of sensitive information about my personal life, including the fact that I had been unfaithful in my marriage. These affairs had nothing to do with my interactions with Epstein, but they were painful for my family. As the public can now see, based on what has been released in the files, Epstein was working to use information about my infidelities—in addition to many lies that he layered on top—to pressure me to re-engage with him. He was unsuccessful in this effort, but it shows some of the ways he tried to leverage his interactions with me to further his agenda.

I should never have met with Epstein in the first place. Based on what I know now, I understand that even if he had delivered the new donors he promised, it would not have justified associating with him.

I see now that he sought to build an image of legitimacy around himself, using connections to reputable and powerful people to deflect scrutiny and attempt to rehabilitate his reputation. I was so focused on the possibility of raising funds for global health that I allowed that goal to override my better judgment. That is a sobering realization, and it has reinforced for me the importance of being more attentive to how access and reputation can be manipulated by people acting in bad faith.

In the work I do, reputation is the basis for developing partnerships that save lives. Meeting with Epstein was a grave error in judgement and put this work at risk. His behavior was antithetical to all my efforts to contribute to a world where everyone has a chance to live a healthy and productive life. If the time I spent with Epstein lent him any credibility, I am deeply sorry. I have learned a significant lesson and am now far more careful about who I engage with even in a limited capacity.

I look forward to answering all your questions about my interactions with Epstein—and the topics identified in the Chairman’s invitation to appear today.

This Committee’s work is essential. It is my sincere hope that those harmed by Epstein’s crimes will receive the justice they deserve.

Giuffre’s brothers continue to formally request a public coronial inquest into the death of their sister and a comprehensive review of the Western Australia Police's actions in the run-up to her suicide. They argue that local authorities failed to adequately protect her or properly investigate her reports of domestic violence and assault in the months leading up to her death.

This week, 16 Australian researchers and domestic violence practitioners wrote an open letter to the Western Australia Coroner, warning that failing to investigate the systemic failures preceding her death would be a "profound injustice". They assert that her case highlights wider systemic issues regarding family violence and coercive control.

The push for an inquiry is completely understandable, and much needed. However, it will likely fail to acknowledge that Giuffre’s false allegations being exposed, her children being removed from her custody, and the pressure from the lawsuit brought against her by fellow Epstein accuser Rina Oh (after Giuffre falsely claimed that Oh had assaulted her) were likely significant factors in her making the tragic decision to take her own life.

It’s probable that one of the motivations behind her brothers calling for an inquiry - to help with their ongoing legal attempts to bag themselves a large chunk of her fortune - will also be completely ignored.

Epstein’s ex-assistant, Sarah Kellen, is attempting to reinvent her public image and rewrite her role in the Epstein’s saga… and the media are already helping her.

It’s remarkable how powerful the Metoo mantra, 'believe all women,' is. For over a decade, and right up to last week, journalists always referred to Epstein's assistant, Sarah Kellen, as a co-conspirator.

They were wrong, of course. Kellen is in fact documented in police reports as having checked that women visiting Epstein to provide sexual services were over 18 - you can listen to my report on her involvement in Epstein’s first arrest by clicking my podcast episode below.

Regardless, newspapers and media outlets from publishing headline after headline of how she organised his massages, recruited women, wrote him loving emails and clearly said she enjoyed her time with him.

But then an intense amount of pressure was placed on her, not just by the public, but by the press, potential prosecutors, and politicians. Inevitably, she was forced to testify after receiving a letter demanding her appearance in front of the House Committee.

At this point, she could have just told the full truth about the first arrest, about how the Epstein scandal has been exaggerated and misrepresented. But instead, she changed her story. She said that the consensual sex was actually abuse. She said (without a shred of evidence) that she was not a co-conspirator, but a victim. She also gave journalists their next sensationalised headline, stating to those grilling her that she once had dinner in the apartment of a man whom the media love to hate: Prince Andrew.

I’ve got more to reveal about this, including the inside PR campaign carried out by her lawyers and advisors, and also the truth about her relationship with Epstein, but will save that for an article coming out on here next week.

Either way, voila! She was instantly believed. Her past was, overnight, rewritten. The headlines and thousands of articles were swept under the rug; and she was transformed from hunted co-conspirator to abuse survivor, from villain to victim, quite literally in the blink of an eye.

Her reinvented image follows her recent divorce and her losing the ability to rely on the cash of her rich and famous racing car driver husband. It also comes just in time for her to be represented by one of the 'survivor' lawyers, Bradley Edwards; for her to go through therapy sessions with the same psychiatrist Edwards and co have chosen to ‘help’ his other Epstein-accusing clients (some of whom, along with Kellen, have publicly stated that this same psychiatrist ‘helped’ them to realise they are ‘victims’); and just in time to potentially exploit the media hype and misrepresentation of the Epstein scandal to join the multi-million-dollar lawsuits.

Shrewd move.

Prominent Epstein accuser Sarah Ransome, whom many of you will likely have seen on Netflix’s fiction-riddled true documentary series, Epstein: Filthy Rich, has been making further unhinged threats and demands for money.

After blowing over a million dollars of settlement payments, Ransome has embarked on an endless rampage of harassment, death threats, and even threats to harm children.

Last year I met Ransome in Amsterdam to interview her for my book, Naked Lies. Since then, she has placed me on the list of her targets, oddly alleging that I am working as a spy, and asking people to have me killed. You can read my article documenting her antisemitism, death threats and threats against the children of Virginia Giuffre’s brother, by clicking the link below.

This week, Ransome attended a local police station. During her time there, she alleges that she was led into an interview room (the Dutch police have an open investigation against her - I’ll be providing an update on that later this month). Inside, she decided that she did not want a particular police officer to be present, becoming angry and aggressive when she did not get her way.

Ransome recorded the below video inside the interview room. It has not been released publicly until now.

After leaving the interview room, she alleged that she was “thrown to the ground” by police officers, and has now threatened the Prime Minister of the Netherlands while demanding that she be sent tens of thousands of pounds.

To date, officials have failed to provide Ransome with the mental health services she evidently requires, and Dutch police have failed to act on calls from multiple individuals to protect those whom she daily threatens, and to protect her from herself.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced that he intends to invite Professor Alan Dershowitz, who previously served as Jeffrey Epstein’s attorney as well as President Trump, to testify.

“I am going to ask Alan Dershowitz to come in, we will have questions for him and we will give him an opportunity to come in,” Comer said on Wednesday morning, adding that the decision was based on the testimony of Lesley Groff, Epstein’s longtime assistant, who testified before the committee on Tuesday, as well as “a meeting that I had afterwards with several of the Epstein survivors”.

I’ve been told by an inside source that the meeting was arranged by Bradley Edwards and David Boies, both of whom have admitted to be working alongside House Democrats ‘pro-bono’ in relation to the Epstein case (Democrats can use them to help smear Donald Trump, and Boies and co can use the Democrats to carry out depositions of their targets while aiding, via subsequent press headlines, to place pressure on the defendants of their ongoing multi-million-dollar lawsuits).

The committee has not yet made public a transcript of Groff’s appearance. In her opening remarks, she told lawmakers that she was unaware of Epstein’s criminal conduct during the years she worked for him. She also characterized him as a “master manipulator and deceiver”.

Personally, I think that Professor Dershowitz will relish the chance to get the truth out. Falsely accused by Virginia Giuffre (Giuffre later issued a public statement admitting that she was mistaken), he has never been frightened to fiercely defend himself, and when it comes to exposing false accusers in the Epstein scandal, he always brings receipts.

You can watch one of my past interviews with Professor Dershowitz by clicking on the above video.

Former Correctional Officer, Tova Noel, was on duty at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Lower Manhattan from 4 p.m. on August 9th, 2019, until 8 a.m. the next day, when Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell.

Since that day, she has been the focus of many a suspicion and conspiracy theory. Now the transcript of her testimony was finally released.

“I have consistently been the subject of threats to my life, conspiracy theories, and outrageous rumours, impacting my mental and physical health,” she said in her testimony earlier this week. “I have received threats from strangers. I have witnessed strangers pontificate about whether I’m a murderer or that I’ll end up dead. I am consistently harassed at my residence, place of employment, in emails, and on the phone. Every few weeks, there’s a new article based on a new theory with little to no factual basis.”

“The failure to execute my duties and responsibilities properly and the submission of inaccurate documentation were not related to Mr. Epstein or his death in any way. The inaccurate documentation were executed at the beginning of each shift and were not done to cover up my conduct or the conduct of my colleague,” she told the committee.

“My inadequate job performance was due to my inexperience, inadequate training, and being overworked,” Noel said, adding that she earned her full base salary in approximately six months because of the amount of overtime she had to work due to understaffing issues.

“The only connection I have to the death of Mr. Epstein is that I happened to be mandated for overtime when he died,” she said.

Noel also confirmed that, contrary to widespread speculation, she was not the ‘orange-clad figure’ seen appearing to enter Epstein’s cell on the night before he died (Epstein’s brother, Mark, believes that he was in fact murdered and that the murder took place on the night when this blurry figure arrived in his cell - you can listen to my shocking interview with him below).

That’s all for this week. But in case you missed them, the two articles below are some of the highlights from my Substack over the past few days: Epstein accuser Rina exposed the truth about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s accuser, Virginia Giuffre; and I did a deep dive into Epstein’s untold origin story.

Coming up on my Substack next week:

• My interview with a man, named in the Epstein Files, whose girlfriend was groomed and recruited by Giuffre when she was just 15 and Giuffre was a legal adult.

• The full, exclusive witness statement written and signed by the mother of one of Giuffre’s victims. This statement has since been included in Ghislaine Maxwell’s habeas petition (under seal), but I’d like to finally make it public.

• War diary: An account of all the developments here in Ukraine, including my interviews with survivors of Russian attacks.

• Breaking news/updates on the Epstein scandal.

• The Cult of Skeletons: An analysis of the evidence in the mysterious case of two religious leaders who brainwashed their followers into starving themselves to death, before disappearing with their money.

• Unsolved Mysteries Revisited: For a bit of fun, I’ll be watching one episode of the old, cult classic TV show ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ and giving some additional insight and case updates.

• Epstein News in a Nutshell: My weekly round-up and analysis of the latest developments and gossip relating to the Epstein case.

• I’ll also be revealing the name and story of ‘Epstein’s Lolita’, a woman whom he role-played Nabokov’s infamous novel with.

All of my articles and exclusive interviews (with the exception of my weekly newsletter) are available to members/paid subscribers only. To gain full access so that you don’t miss out on what the media are hiding from you, please consider clicking and subscribing below for just a few dollars/pounds a month.

Thanks for your support - I hope you all have a great weekend!

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“I was there during a lot of the key moments where she [Virginia Giuffre] accuses people of doing certain things.”

“They had their own clique and nobody ever mentioned Prince Andrew.”

“The media refuses to mention the name of my recruiter”.

“I don’t really believe Virginia slept with Glenn Dubin.”

“Virginia was in love with Jeffrey”.

“All those girls were serial recruiters of minors while they were adults”.

“They sort of turned Virginia into this beacon of light of, like, victims. And she was really, like, the beacon of recruiters of minors.”

These are just a few of the startling claims that Rina Oh made during one of my interviews with her back in 2023, and which you can listen to in the below exclusive audio recording - a recording that I’ve never before released, until now.

Rina, who met Epstein in the early 2000s, is correct in asserting that Giuffre was - contrary to her media-cultivated image - in reality a criminal who illegally groomed and recruited children whilst she herself was over the age of consent.

You can listen to my interview with the mother of one of her victims here:

You can also read my shocking interviews with Giuffre’s ex-partners, both of whom are mentioned extensively in the Epstein files.

Incase you missed them, the first three parts of my interview with Rina Oh can be listened to below.

Also coming up this week:

• My exclusive interview with a man, named in the Epstein Files, whose girlfriend was groomed and recruited by Giuffre when she was just 15 and Giuffre was a legal adult.

• The full, exclusive witness statement written and signed by the mother of one of Giuffre’s victims. This statement has since been included in Ghislaine Maxwell’s habeas petition (under seal), but I’d like to finally make it public.

• An update on Maxwell’s habeas petition.

• War diary: An account of all the developments here in Ukraine, including my interviews with survivors of Russian attacks.

• Unsolved Mysteries Revisited: For a bit of fun, I’ll be watching one episode of the old, cult classic TV show ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ and giving some additional insight and case updates.

• An analysis of ‘the cult of skeletons’: A religious fanatic who brainwashed hundreds of men, women and children into starving themselves to death is now awaiting trial. But many unanswered questions still remain.

• Epstein News in a Nutshell: My weekly round-up and analysis of the latest developments and gossip relating to the Epstein case. If you missed last week’s, you can read it below:

But, without further ado, let’s listen, for the first time, as Rina Oh exposes the truth about Virginia Giuffre and some of the women whom you’ve been falsely led to believe are ‘survivors’ of Jeffrey Epstein…

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As well as trying my best over the years to look past the Epstein scandal clickbait and get to the truth, I’ve been keen to understand the humans behind the headlines - from accusers to the accused - investigating and interviewing my way through America and beyond so that we can finally get a glimpse at the real characters in the case, not just their media-invented one-dimensional caricatures.

The following comes from my book, Naked Lies, in which I began by travelling to America and digging into the origin story of the now-infamous Jeffrey Epstein:

Back in New York, I glanced back at the tall prison where Epstein breathed his last. Though now closed following a damning report into its numerous failings, a solitary blue-shirted guard sat inside his shack in front of the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Lower Manhattan. In a taxi driven by a silent driver, I headed further downtown, passing early rising tourists busy snapping photographs of courtroom steps where their favourite films, including The Godfather, were shot, and on to the leafy suburbs straddling Central Park.

With the yellow cab rolling to a gradual halt, I paid the fare and stepped out onto East 71st Street, Upper East Side. I’d gone there to see Number Nine, a brooding French neo-classical townhouse shaded by an equidistant row of Callery pear trees. Opulent, 15-foot-high oak doors stood framed by carved limestone angels, crowned by a pan-like bearded figure that scowled down at me menacingly. The gouges beside the door’s brass plates made by FBI agents have long since been smoothed down. A few steps away, rain-beaten, flop-cornered A4 notices pasted beside iron bars informed neighbours and passers-by of ongoing renovation work.

Described by former Vanity Fair journalist Vicky Ward as “the crown jewel of the city’s residential town houses… almost ludicrously out of proportion with its four- and five-story neighbours,” and seeming “more like an institution than a house,” the decadent Herbert N. Straus House was completed in 1932, reportedly the largest private residence in Manhattan. Straus, the sixth son of the co-owners of R. H. Macy & Co., in fact never spent a single night within its walls.

The cost of property taxes was too much to shoulder, even for such a renowned retail heir. Thus it remained unfinished when, in 1944, it was donated to the Archdiocese of New York, its 21,000 square feet, nine-floor interior converted into a hospital and, in the 1960s, a school. That was until 1989, when billionaire businessman Leslie Wexner, a man now firmly ingrained in Epstein scandal lore, snapped it up for a not-so-modest $13.2 million. Wexner, the former CEO of lingerie chain Victoria’s Secret, was quick to have the building remodelled, transforming it into a mansion fit for the setting of a gothic novel, plastered with paintings and grand fireplaces.

Surprisingly, I was accidentally given a brief glimpse inside when the front doors suddenly creaked open and two workers carried out a large bubble-wrapped mirror and headed towards a white van parked nearby. My eyes fixed fleetingly on the marbled foyer, dimly lit by a large chandelier. It’s all was able to see. The two men briskly returned, their hands now empty, hard hats sitting loosely on their heads. One of them, a burly, stubble-chinned chap, scanned me up and down with a suspicious glare. Shuffling back inside, the doors swiftly closed behind them. They remained closed for the remainder of my visit.

The present owners are understandably keen to maintain their privacy. Understandable, that is, owing to the identity of the previous homeowner. In 1995, when his life was approaching the peak of its ominous wealth and success, a 42-year-old Jeffrey Epstein proudly strolled into Number Nine and claimed it as his own. Although ownership was initially registered through a trust connected to both Wexner and himself, this was officially changed in 2011 to a trust controlled solely by Jeffrey, as Wexner had long since married and moved to Ohio.

Standing alone outside its façade, I was left to imagine the rest of its sprawling interior, eventually extended to more than 50,000 square feet – though I can rely on the accounts of others, including Vicky Ward, who visited Jeffrey at the house when writing her 2003 profile piece titled “The Talented Mr. Epstein.” Upon entering the house, “you feel you have stumbled into someone’s private Xanadu,” she recounted. “This is no mere rich person’s home, but a high-walled, eclectic, imperious fantasy that seems to have no boundaries.”

Adorning the entrance hall walls were rows of individually framed prosthetic eyeballs manufactured for injured English soldiers during the First World. They were accompanied by a “twice-life-size sculpture of a naked African warrior”. A nearby room, described then simply as the “leather room,” came dressed in cordovan-coloured fabric and leopard-print chairs, a large “oriental fantasy of a woman holding an opium pipe and caressing a snarling lionskin” draping down from one of its walls. Though Jeffrey, a teetotaller who abstained even from smoking tobacco, was neither a fan nor partaker of drugs, his taste in furnishings, particularly art, seemed intentionally to present itself as an unsubtle nod to a free, almost Bacchanalian mindset.

Beneath a flight of stairs, tucked away from prying eyes, a bathroom lined in lead came accompanied with closed-circuit televisions and a phone, both concealed in a cabinet under the sink, and both the source of much speculation, now connected to claims, including from Jeffrey’s own brother, that Jeffrey had intentionally gathered “dirt” on some of the house’s most prominent visitors, not least of all, allegedly, Donald Trump and the Clintons.

To this day, Jeffrey’s acquisition of the property and the precise means behind his sultan-style wealth remain shrouded in mystery. He hadn’t always lived in such luxury. Far from it, in fact.

Although Epstein had lived in several extravagant homes, including a former Iranian government building on 34 East 69th Street and a mansion outside Columbus, Ohio, close to Wexner’s own residence, he came from humble beginnings. And though we might never fully ascertain what his early life was like (his brother, Mark, told me that he might write a book about it himself one day), a skeletal biography can be gleaned from personal, financial, and business records.

Born in Brooklyn on January 20, 1953, his parents, Pauline “Paula” Stolofsky and Seymour George Epstein, married when Paula was in the late stages of pregnancy. She was a school aide and homemaker, and Seymour a groundskeeper and gardener for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, the pair brought home a modest income, just enough to raise Jeffrey and his future younger brother in working-to-middle-class, relative comfort in an apartment nestled in the middle of a three-story house in Sea Gate, a private gated community in salt-sprayed Coney Island, a pebble’s throw away from the area’s iconic lighthouse.

Sea Gate has had a significant Jewish presence for almost 100 years, with Epstein’s parents, both practising Jews, regular visitors to Kneses Israel, the neighbourhood’s oldest synagogue situated just across the street. Like many of the local townsfolk, Jeffrey was the child of European immigrants. And, like most of his neighbours who had harrowing tales of extended family members being brutally murdered during the Holocaust, Seymour and Paula had their own, often unspeakable family history that was steeped in persecution. Faith was the cornerstone of the Epstein family life.

By all accounts, the Epstein’s were doting parents, with neighbours later describing them as “the most gentle people, the most simple people in the world”. Both affectionately gave their two children nicknames within the walls of their small family home: “Bear” for Jeffrey, “Puggie” for Mark. “He was a little nerdy boy,” a former neighbour who grew up on the same block recalled, detailing how she and Jeffrey would play punchball in front of his house and in the schoolyard. “He was just an average boy, very smart in math, slightly overweight, freckles, always smiling,” she added. “There was absolutely no indication at that time of the vile, disturbed man that he was to become.”

Encouraged to learn the piano from five-years-old, Jeffrey was regarded by friends, most of whom lived in the same vibrant neighbourhood, as a talented budding musician. Both boys attended public schools, then a junior high school where Jeffrey, a model student, earned extra pocket money by helping fellow students in their studies, before heading off to Lafayette High School in Gravesend. “Pictures of Jeffrey in high school don’t feature the smug smile seen in photos from the past 20 years; his features are softer and calmer,” The Forward newspaper, formerly known as The Jewish Daily, reported.

Consisting predominantly of Italians, Jews and African-Americans, Jewish students often faced anti-Semitism at the school and in South Brooklyn in general. ”There was a lot of volatility at Lafayette,” one graduate told The Forward. “It was a blue-collar area that was, at one time, 90 percent Italian. Then a small number of Jews moved in, and there was anti-Semitism. The Italians didn’t want the Jews to be there.”  One classmate, Beverly Donatelli, said that she and a curly-haired Jeffrey were sweethearts for a time, but that Jeffrey was notably shy.

His shyness didn’t last long. Letters to Jeffrey, and contemporary photographs, detail that, from a late teen onwards, he was popular, often got into mischief with his friends, and had countless sexual encounters, one-night stands, and more serious relationships. He graduated from Lafayette in 1969 shortly after his 16th birthday, skipping two grades due to his evidently advanced intellect, far excelling his peers. Of particular interest to him was mathematics, a subject at which he was abnormally adept. Numbers and equations seemed to play like tunes before him, as though lifted from his many collected music sheets.  

Advanced math classes at the private Cooper Union college, and enrollment at New York University soon followed, where the teenager studied mathematical physiology. Strangely, however, he left in the summer of 1974 without receiving a degree. Even stranger was his subsequent hiring, devoid of any qualifications, as a physics and mathematics teacher for teens at Dalton School, a prestigious, private and progressive establishment on the Upper East Side. “I’m teaching a bunch of little brats next year,” Jeffrey had sarcastically scribbled in his yearbook.  

The school’s eccentric headmaster, Donald Barr, had made several unconventional staff recruitments in the run-up to the new term, the appointment of 21-year-old Ralph Lauren-lookalike Jeffrey onto the faculty rumoured to be one of them. Just one year prior, Barr wrote and published Space Relations, a heavily criticised science fiction novel about a planet ruled by oligarchs who engage in child sex slavery. Described by Kirkus Reviews as “a coruscatingly literate tale for grown-ups,” and derided by reporter Becky Ferreira as “highly unsettling” due to its depiction of the rape of enslaved teenage girls. The book would, understandably, be scrutinised further in the months and years after Jeffrey’s death, with parallels drawn between the book’s plot and the grim accusations made against him.

Read more

You can also read my recent article about her, particularly what the media are hiding from you:

And if you haven’t already seen it, here is today’s newsletter where I run through all of the latest Epstein news and add a little context to the chaos.

But for now, here is Kellen’s full testimony transcript (please note that it hasn’t yet been fact-checked by anyone. I’ll be doing this shortly):

Sarah Kellen Full Transcript May 21, 2026

16.7MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

On Tuesday, I’ll be posting the final part, in which Rina discusses the truth about Virginia Giuffre and her ongoing lawsuit against Giuffre’s estate.

But for now, let’s take a look at some of the latest Epstein updates you may have missed, and I’ll add some context/facts that the media are hiding from you…

EPSTEIN’S ASSISTANT IS ‘PLANNING TO WRITE A TELL-ALL BOOK’

Newsfeeds today have been buzzing with the claim that Sarah Kellen has decided to write a book revealing the truth about the Epstein scandal.

The claim, however, originates from Page Six, a popular, yet ultimately unreliable gossip site based in New York. Page Six’s claim is based solely on one anonymous source, and there has been no confirmation from Kellen herself.

Regardless, the misleading headline has already been promoted as fact by politicians in America, mostly Democrats, who have demonstrated that they only wish to exploit the Epstein scandal for political point-scoring, often amplifying unsubstantiated, sensational headlines to tighten the screws on their political rivals. I don’t doubt for a second that the lawyers of the ‘survivors’ will soon be doing the same when it comes to Kellen (albeit their motivation being financial rather than political), and I’ve been told that she is now being represented by Bradley Edwards (I’ll write an article about Bradley’s blackmail tactics on Monday).

Regarding Kellen, you can read my recent article about her here:

EPSTEIN INTRODUCED MELANIA TO TRUMP, A FORMER MODEL HAS CLAIMED

For years, modelling agent Paolo Zampolli has repeated the same story about how Donald and Melania Trump first crossed paths. The Italian-born close ally of Trump, and the special envoy for global affairs in his administration, has long said he introduced the pair himself at a party held inside Manhattan’s Kit Kat Club in 1998. In an interview with The New York Times during the 2016 presidential campaign, Zampolli again described himself as the man responsible for the meeting.

But a former partner of Zampolli is now publicly disputing that version of events.

Amanda Ungaro, an ex-Brazilian model, posted a video to X that was later removed from the platform. In the clip, Ungaro accused Zampolli of lying about introducing Melania to Trump. She instead alleged that Melania was connected to Jeffrey Epstein and met Trump through Epstein.

“You never introduced Melania to Trump,” Ungaro says in the video. “It was Jeffrey Epstein. She was escort of Jeffrey Epstein. That’s how she met Donald Trump. I know because I was with you for 20 years and you always told me it was Epstein, not you.”

The New Times, which reported on the deleted video, said it had not independently verified the allegations.

Late last year, Zampolli himself severed ties with Ungaro, his wife of twenty years, and accused her of extortion.

In a nutshhell, he’d discovered that Ungaro was being held in Miami on fraud charges and allegedly contacted a senior official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to report that she was living illegally in the U.S.

Ungaro was thus deported in October 2025 and appears to now be a woman scorned.

Speaking to Italian broadcaster RAI in April of this year, Zampolli alleged extortion on his ex-wife’s part and said: "Brazilian women cause trouble with everyone, right? It’s not like this was the first one."

Melania has herself already publicly denied the rumour that Epstein introduced her to Trump, issuing a nervous statement to the press on April 9th of this year.

TRUMP REFILES LAWSUIT AGAINST WASHINGTON POST’S EPSTEIN LETTER CLAIM

The American President has refiled his lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and two of its journalists.

The case centers on a report about an alleged sexually suggestive birthday message carrying Trump’s name that was reportedly sent to Epstein and included in a book of letters and drawings, organised by Ghislaine Maxwell, for a book that was given to Epstein for his 50th birthday.

The message has since been widely reported by the media and pondered over by numerous Epstein accusers whom I’ve interviewed - Rina Oh had a print-out of the message pinned to the wall of her office when I last visited her in New Jersey.

An earlier version of the lawsuit was thrown out last month after a federal judge concluded that Trump had not sufficiently shown that The Wall Street Journal acted with “actual malice” when publishing the story.

Trump’s refiled lawsuit argues that the article was defamatory and is seeking $10 billion in damages.

According to the complaint, the report contained what Trump’s legal team described as “glaring failures in journalistic ethics and standards of accurate reporting.”

A spokesperson for Trump told CNN that the president had “refiled his powerhouse lawsuit” against the newspaper and the other defendants involved in the case. The spokesperson added that Trump intended to continue pursuing legal action against media organisations he accuses of spreading “Fake News and smears.”

Former Chief Crown Prosecutor (falsely) claims Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor could be facing ‘life imprisonment’ over the Epstein scandal

In an interview with 60 Minutes Australia, former Chief Crown Prosecutor Nazir Afzal gave a legal breakdown of ‘the rare, life-sentence charges Mountbatten-Windsor could face’. 60 Minutes promoted the interview on YouTube by writing: “Drawing on decades of experience, Afzal exposes how the Epstein files and systemic breaches of trust have finally triggered a historic royal reckoning.

To put it bluntly, Afzal, an ardent supporter of leftwing politics and a man well known for promoting unsubstantiated, sensational claims on X, is talking bollocks.

The allegations made against the former prince by Virginia Giuffre were exposed as being fabricated for money and attention - I was the first to expose them in my lengthy report, We Need to Talk About Virginia, back in 2022, and her claims have been further debunked through her former close associates whom I interviewed for my book, Naked Lies.

A second woman has since made allegations against Andrew, claiming that he ‘behaved inappropriately’ towards her whilst she was over the legal age of consent and believed to have been working at the Royal Ascot horse race in 2002.

But this so-far anonymous woman has already confirmed that she will not speak to the police nor make an official complaint (read from that what you will), and, despite misleading mainstream media headlines insinuating otherwise, police officials have confirmed that no investigation into the allegations has been opened.

None of the allegations against Andrew could ever be punished by ‘a life sentence’.

Furthermore, the Metropolitan Police long ago confirmed that they would not open an investigation into Giuffre’s allegations, with her being over the legal age of consent in the UK at the time she claims to have slept with the former prince in Maxwell’s old Kinnerton Street townhouse, and the FBI concluding in official documents that they believed Giuffre to have fabricated parts of her entire Epstein story. It’s important to note here that Giuffre previously claimed that she’d slept with Andrew during a long weekend with him at Epstein’s New Mexico ranch, only to later admit that she had invented the story.

You can listen to myself and some of Giuffre’s former associates running through her many demonstrable lies below:

On another note, I’ve got someone back in my homeland of rainy yet beautiful old England who will soon be attending the trial of the balaclava-clad maniac who approached Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, during which Andrew will be giving evidence via video link. I’ll promote his coverage of the trial on my Substack.

EPSTEIN’S NEW MEXICO RANCH INVESTIGATION MOVES FORWARD (SORT OF)

Lawmakers in New Mexico convened the opening session of the state’s newly formed Epstein “Truth Commission” on Monday, beginning what officials describe as a formal inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch and allegations tied to the property, including sexual abuse, trafficking, and other “possible criminal activity”.

The commission, made up of four state lawmakers, met for under an hour. The session focused largely on setting out the scope of the investigation and hearing testimony from people connected to Epstein’s case.

A woman identified only as Rachel, described as “the only publicly known Epstein accuser currently living in New Mexico”, addressed the commission about what she claimed to be her experiences.

I can confirm that this woman is Rachel Benavidez, a trained masseuse who was hired by Epstein when she was well over the age of legal consent. There have been numerous inconsistencies I’ve highlighted in Benavidez’s embellished story over the years, which I’ll reveal in an article this month.

NOTE: In future, with the exception of this weekly newsletter, all of my articles and exclusive interviews will be placed behind a paywall. This has become unavoidable due to Substack now being the only source of income to support my work and investigations, revealing to you what the media hide and lie about. You can kindly subscribe now for just $4 a month and get full access to all of my past interviews with key Epstein witnesses and more, by clicking the button below. I truly thank you for your support. Without it, I can’t continue, and the mainstream media will once again win in their battle to mislead you with politically and financially-motivated clickbait.

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Members also heard statements from relatives of Virginia Giuffre, and seem to have believed them hook, line and sinker. This is despite the fact that Giuffre’s New Mexico claims, along with most of her others, have been thoroughly debunked.

The New Mexico investigation was launched after the mainstream media heavily promoted a bizarre email found in the Epstein files, in which an anonymous individual demanded tens of thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin on the promise that he would then ‘reveal where bodies are buried’ on the Zorro ranch.

The email is understood to have been a mere scam attempt. To date, no-one has filed a missing persons report in relation to the Epstein scandal, and no bodies have been found.

THE PETER MANDELSON FILES PROVED TO BE A BIG FAT NOTHING BURGER

The U.K. government released a second batch of files containing more than 1,500 pages relating to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the U.S.

The release follows pressure over Mandelson’s former friendship with Epstein and allegations that he abused his position to illegally feed Epstein inside information from which Epstein may have financially profited.

Mandelson was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office in February. He remains under investigation but has not been charged.

Other than some gossipy email and text exchanges discussing politics, his resignation, and the Labour Party, the files did not contain any evidence of illegal activity and shed no further light on his past association with Epstein.

JES STALEY AGREES TO BE OFFICIALY INTERVIEWED BY THE HOUSE

Jes Staley, a former top executive at JPMorgan Chase, has agreed to be interviewed on July 23rd by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about his former friendship with Epstein.

This is certainly one to watch - though it will take place behind closed doors, we’ll eventually be privy to a transcript.

I’ve got more to write about this, but will post an article later this month, including evidence that the JP Morgan Stanley lawsuit - that saw an astronomical payout handed to Epstein accusers and their lawyers - involved a grave conflict of interest involving a senior figure at JP Morgan and his sexual relationship with one of the lawsuit’s beneficiaries.

PAM BONDI GETS ATTACKED BY ‘SURVIVOR’ DURING TESTIMONY - BUT THE MEDIA AREN’T TELLING YOU THE TRUTH

While Pam Bondi was being grilled by Congress this week, Epstein accuser Liz Stein was wheeled out by the lawyers to grab headlines, accusing Bondi of being dishonest.

What the media aren’t telling you, however, is that Stein herself is a complete fraud - and I can prove it. An article about her will be out on my Substack later this month, including my receipts. It will follow other articles finally exposing the truth about her fellow Epstein accusers, starting with Anouska de Georgiou.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PUNISHES EPSTEIN’S FORMER DENTIST

As the witch hunt rages on, its latest victim is Dr. James Fine, Epstein’s ex-dentist.

Due to media pressure, Columbia University’s College of Dental Medicine has now announced on that it has demoted the senior administrator for helping Karyna Shuliak, the last girlfriend of Epstein, gain admission into an advanced dental residency program in 2023.

Dr. Fine, who oversaw all postdoctoral programs at the dental college, follows the disciplining of two other Columbia dentists in February for their roles in admitting Shuliak to the dental school in 2012.

FORMER GOVERNMENT MINISTER UNWITTINGLY SUPPORTS EPSTEIN’S RECRUITER

Former victims minister, Labour MP Alex Davies-Jones, has accused the British government of “failing to listen to the survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”

Davies-Jones, who resigned in May, said victims have been treated as a “footnote” in the row over Lord Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US.

Speaking in the House of Commons to support her claim, she read out a statement from Lisa Phillips, whom the media have presented as a ‘survivor’.

In the letter, Phillips accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of ignoring her requests for a meeting.

But what Davies-Jones likely is unaware of is the fact that Phillips, who met Epstein whilst in her twenties, was not a victim, but a recruiter, with Rina Oh being just one of numerous young women whom she connected Epstein with. Phillips is also the focus of one of my shocking articles lined up for release this month.

EPSTEIN DOPPELGANGER RUNNING FOR OFFICE

In whackier news, a man who went viral over claims he bears a striking likeness to the late Epstein (and who now has a Wikipedia page dedicated to him) has declared that he will be running in an election.

Dubbed ‘Palm Beach Pete’ by the public, Peter Simel found himself at the centre of conspiracy theories alleging that Epstein had fake his death and was in fact living as Peter.

If that’s the case (spoiler alert: it isn’t), then Epstein announced this week that he’ll be standing to become the next mayor of Miami and is advising his voters to “live your best life”.

IN OTHER NEWS

MANGO MURDER? - The son of the founder of global fashion brand Mango has been arrested. The heir to the Mango fashion empire will temporarily step down from his role as vice president, the company told employees on Tuesday, after he was arrested on suspicion of playing a role in the death of his billionaire father and company founder, Isak Andic. Andic was arrested last week in relation to the suspicious death of his father, who died after falling on a hike in 2024, but was not formally charged with a crime and later released on €1 million ($1.16 million) bail.

KATE PRICE HUSBAND MYSTERY GETS MURKIER - Famous British glamour model Katie Price is still hitting the headlines after her husband alleged he’d been kidnapped in Dubai and is currently being held hostage. But skeletons continue to tumble out of his closet, casting doubt on his claims. Read more here.

LUCY LETBY - The public, joined by experts and not-so-expert armchair detectives, continue to debate the case of Lucy Letby, the British nurse convicted over the deaths of several infants under her care. This week, further testimony and evidence was pumped out into the public domain. I’ll be covering both sides of the argument in my upcoming podcast series, DO NO HARM: The Curious Case of Lucy Letby.

That’s all from me for this week, but get ready for a jam-packed series of articles next week and over the coming weeks and months.

And if you aren’t already, please help support independent journalism and join the fight against mainstream media misinformation, by upgrading your subscription right now for just a few dollars/pounds a month (it will also give you access to all my past and future articles and exclusive interviews).

Thank you, and have a fantastic weekend!

Witnessing Epstein engaging in a sexual encounter with a woman in the bathroom of his West Palm Beach mansion; Her views on Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial; Her reaction to Epstein’s death. These are just a few of the points covered by Epstein accuser Rina Oh in the below audio clip - the third instalment of our interview.

Rina also reveals that she was subjected to online bullying by other Epstein accusers after elements of the press labelled her as one of Epstein’s recruiters.

“Maria Farmer took it one step further and has been posting racist things about me on TikTok,” she told me.

If you haven’t already, you can listen to part one here, and part two here.

Next week I’ll be releasing my discussion with Rina Oh about Virginia Giuffre’s numerous contradictions and all-out fabrications, and Rina’s ongoing lawsuit against Giuffre’s estate.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be releasing more of my exclusive interviews with key witnesses in the Epstein scandal, new evidence, insightful coverage, interviews and articles on other issues (including high profile criminal cases and my interviews with survivors of infamous terrorist attacks), and much more.

And if you haven’t already, you can now grab the eBook version of my book, Naked Lies, from Barnes and Nobel for just 99p/99 cents by clicking here.

These shocking interviews, like the one below with Rina, will be available to paid subscribers only. For just a few dollars/pounds a month, you can subscribe and get full access to interviews and facts that the mainstream media intentionally hides from you, while kindly supporting my ongoing independent investigations.

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Without further ado, listen to part three of Rina Oh’s intriguing interview below…

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She explains the inner workings of Epstein’s harem, how he cultivated women, gave them instructional books to study from, and placed them into a hierarchy.

Some he considered to be ‘favourites’, others servants. All of them were expected to cater to his out-of-control, insatiable sexual desires.

Rina states that she never witnessed Ghislaine Maxwell engage in any illegal or improper activity, that the women she saw with Epstein all seemed “happy” and free to leave at any time, and that all of them, except Virginia Giuffre, were over the legal age of consent.

In this part of the interview she also debunks some of the false mainstream media talking points, and recounts the time she visited Epstein’s West Palm Beach mansion, what she saw happen there, and the time she met Maxwell.

In part three, out tomorrow, Rina runs through her final days with Epstein, the event that led to her breaking off her association with him, and discusses how the Epstein scandal has essentially been overhyped while genuine child sex trafficking cases around the world go largely ignored.

In the final Rina Oh audio clip, out on Monday, Rina divulges the shocking truth about Virginia Giuffre, the trip they made together in New York, Giuffre’s numerous false allegations, and Rina’s ongoing lawsuit against her estate.

If you missed part one, you can listen to it by clicking here.

Paid subscribers can listen to part two below. All subscription fees (it’s only four dollars to sign up for access to my exclusive interviews with Epstein’s brother, Maxwell’s siblings, Professor Dershowitz, and many other key witnesses in the Epstein scandal - all fees help fund my ongoing investigation into the Epstein scandal and into other cases that the media are intentionally lying to you about).

If you aren’t already a member/paid subscriber, you can kindly become one by clicking the below button and quickly entering your email address - and I thank you in advance for your support:

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Next week, along with more exclusive evidence and insights about the Epstein case and other cases, I’ll be releasing my interview with one of Giuffre’s former friends who is mentioned in the Epstein files.

RINA OH PART TWO…

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Part one covers Rina’s childhood, her teenage years, and her first encounters with Epstein. Part two, released tomorrow (Thursday) has Rina dive deeper into Epstein’s plans to form a harem, Rina’s visit to his West Palm Beach mansion, what she saw there, the truth about Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre and Rina’s ongoing lawsuit against her estate… and much, much more.

She certainly makes some startling revelations about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal - many of which you won’t have heard anywhere else before.

If you aren’t already, please do subscribe for just a few pounds/dollars a month, to gain access to all of my exclusive interviews with key witnesses in the Epstein scandal. You will be able to watch and listen to some of the most shocking testimonies and read unseen evidence. My available interviews include sit downs with Trump’s former lawyer, Professor Alan Dershowitz; Ian Maxwell, the brother of Ghislaine Maxwell'; Virginia Giuffre’s ex-partners; the harrowing account given to me by the mother of one of Giuffre’s many victims; and Mark Epstein going into graphic detail about the suspicious circumstances of his brothers death.

I’ll be uploading new interviews very shortly, along with weekly coverage of the Epstein scandal and the parts of the case that the media refuse to show you.

RINA OH - PART ONE

Listen to the full episode below, and get ready for part two, out tomorrow, where things get a lot more explosive.

NOTE: Since our first interview, Rina Oh has publicly revealed that the woman who recruited her for Epstein was Lisa Phillips (I’ll be writing more about Phillips later).

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Appearing at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday, Murrell pleaded guilty to embezzling £400,310.65 between August 2010 and October 2022.

The 61-year-old used SNP funds to finance …

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The newly examined records paint a far more detailed picture of Kira’s relationship with Epstein than has previously been publicly understood.

Emails released through the Department of Justice show her repeatedly helping arrange meetings between Epstein and women between 2009 and 2018, long after Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea in Florida. Hundreds of emails I’ve examined reveal a steady stream of introductions, recommendations, photographs, logistical discussions, and conversations about vulnerable young women, some identified by age.

The emails document a close relationship with Epstein that stretches across many years.

They also place Kira unusually close to several powerful figures whose names continue surfacing around the Epstein story, among them Paolo Zampolli, the former modelling agent credited with introducing Melania to Donald Trump in the late 1990s and now serving as President Trump’s special representative for global partnerships at the State Department.

The scale of the recruitment described in the emails is striking.

By sending Epstein new women’s names, ages, and organising hook-ups, Kira appears to have helped source scores of women for Epstein for almost a decade.

Long before any of that, she had emerged from a very different world.

As a teenager in Russia, she trained in rhythmic gymnastics alongside her close friend, Alina Kabaeva, the Olympic gold medalist and President Vladimir Putin’s longtime lover.

She won gold at the 1998 Junior Olympics at just 9 years old, and by 13 she was a member of the junior Russian national team, training at the elite Novogorsk Training Center.

“I had very happy, sporty childhood where we were protected from any kind of danger,” Kira told Airmail in 2022. “We were under the total control of coaches and the bodyguards and other employees.… The worst thing that happened is that I dropped a hoop and lost to Ukrainian gymnast.”

A source I have spoken to - another former friend of Kira who was also a gymnast - claimed to me that Putin briefly ‘dated’ Kira before taking a shine to Kabaeva, whom Kira allegedly introduced him to.

Epstein himself spent years trying to win an audience with Putin, according to the emails published by the US justice department in which the Russian president/war criminal is mentioned 1,055 times.

The files show how Epstein jostled friends and political associates, including Israel’s Ehud Barak, to set up a meeting for him to discuss foreign investment in Russia from at least 2013 and until 2018, a year before Epstein died in prison.

There are also emails to former Norwegian PM Thorbjørn Jagland pressing him to help broker a Putin meeting. In another exchange from 2018, Epstein suggested Russian Foreign Minister and infamous propagandist Sergei Lavrov could gain “insight” into Donald Trump by speaking with him.

It is unclear whether Putin and Epstein eventually saw each other in the flesh, although unsubstantiated claims allege that Epstein boasted to friends that such a meeting did in fact take place.

Either way, Putin eventually began a longterm relationship with Kira’s pal, Alina Kabaeva, with Kira allegedly remaining her close friend and continuing to occasionally see the president.

In April 2008, the Moskovsky Korrespondent reported that Kabaeva was engaged to Putin. The story was instantly denied by state-controlled media, and Putin’s oppressive regime had the newspaper shut down. In the following years, the status of Kabaeva and Putin’s relationship became a topic of speculation, including allegations that they have multiple children together, something which my source who was formerly close to Kira alleged that ‘Kira was fully aware of’.

In March 2015, Kabaeva was reported to have given birth to a daughter at the VIP hospital of Saint Ann in Ticino, Switzerland.

In 2019, she reportedly gave birth to twin sons at the Kulakov maternity clinic in Moscow. The Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported in 2022 that a Swiss gynecologist of Russian origin assisted at both births, stating that the first in 2015 was of a boy and the second in 2019 of another boy… and that both were Putin’s sons.

Kira later claimed that, during her time spent in Kabaeva’s orbit, while still involved in gymnastics, modelling scouts began approaching her.

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Kellen, now 46, met Epstein in the early 1990s when she was 18.

She recounted to the Oversight panel that she was raised in a “religious cult” and was married at t…

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Another one of Epstein’s former lovers is joining her.

And Ian Maxwell, the brother of Ghislaine Maxwell, has written a letter to The Times, reigniting memories of the fierce feud involving his late father, that came to be remembered as ‘Maxwell vs. Murdoch’.

As most of …

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Byron Long, a constituent of Labour MP Stephen Doughty, claimed to the Mail on Sunday to have first approa…

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Though largely unreported, that drama is nothing new. I’ve observed that it has been ongoing from long before I first began investigating the Epstein scand…

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Th…

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In industry terms, her work is described in the commercial modelling s…

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