The enigmatic, unsettling — and depraved — relationship between Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein exerts a terrible fascination.
However, it’s so clouded and obscured by their lies that even the closest people to them aren’t sure of its true nature.
Epstein was undoubtedly wealthy and handsome when he was found in prison in 2019. He had been charged with child sex trafficking.
He was socially awkward, inept, taciturn, and, obviously, moral.
Maxwell was, however, gregarious and Oxford-educated, with an inordinate amount of connections. Although she was socially highly confident and charming at all times, as well as being eccentric and self-serving, Maxwell is a ruthlessly selfish individual.
Her love became his companion, his constant companion, and his lady of the home; his confidante.
The enigmatic, unsettling — and depraved — relationship between Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein exerts a terrible fascination
Epstein, in return, kept Maxwell in the lavish lifestyle of the super-rich, to which her childhood — growing up in a 53-room mansion in Oxfordshire with private yachts and jets at her disposal — had accustomed her
The fashionable elite of New York — where Epstein infamously abused underage girls in his £60 million townhouse, one of a number of luxury properties he owned throughout the world — now, of course, spurn Ghislaine like rotting detritus
She offered him the entrée he craved into a world of high-society movers and shakers, of presidents and royalty. What else could the Brooklyn-born man have done to meet Prince Andrew?
Epstein, in return, kept Maxwell in the lavish lifestyle of the super-rich, to which her childhood — growing up in a 53-room mansion in Oxfordshire with private yachts and jets at her disposal — had accustomed her.
It is difficult to pinpoint when she lost her moral compass — or, indeed, whether she ever possessed one — but the roles she assumed became darker.
She became Epstein’s madam, procuring an endless supply of young girls, the innocent victims who fed Epstein’s paedophile appetites.
The fashionable elite of New York — where Epstein infamously abused underage girls in his £60 million townhouse, one of a number of luxury properties he owned throughout the world — now, of course, spurn Ghislaine like rotting detritus.
Is the Maxwell/Epstein love story romantic, or pragmatic? Former associates have different views.
R. Couri Hay (manhattan society columnist) and publicist believes that Manhattan society was entirely founded upon what the other could do.
‘I want to make it clear that I’m not a friend of either of them and when I first met them on the social circuit, no one had a whiff of what was going on. There was no hint of any scandal,’ he insists.
‘Ghislaine was a classic social climber, only interested in people who were rich and entitled and powerful. She’d be talking to you and constantly looking over your shoulder to see if there was someone higher up the social scale.’
Of her relationship with Epstein, Hay says: ‘I don’t think there is any secret to it — it was entirely transactional.
‘When she first came to New York, she had $100,000 (£75,000) a year and rented a one-bedroom apartment, and then suddenly she had money and houses and helicopters and planes and boats.
‘She wanted someone like her father, who was rich and powerful — and that was Jeffrey.’
An unearthly haul of photos never before seen was taken by the FBI and used as evidence. It showed Ghislaine maxwell giving Jeffrey Epstein foot rubs using his private aircraft, Lolita Express.
In an attempt to prove that Maxwell was in a relationship with Epstein, the prosecution took photos from Epstein’s home.
This picture of Jeffrey Epstein posing in front of his private aircraft was taken during his trial for his alleged madam GhislaineMaxwell.
Hay adds: ‘She was socially adept and had a Rolodex of interesting contacts, and Jeffrey liked to “collect” people. She was known for producing Prince Andrew, and that made her an instant star.
‘I saw them at a very grand party once, and she might as well have been leading him around on a leash. He was extremely shy and awkward. His crutch.
‘She’d hold his arm and parade him around, but it was clear Jeffrey didn’t like going out — he preferred to be in a controlled environment at his various homes.
‘She had $20 million or $30 million in the bank — where did that come from? It was Jeffrey’s money.
‘She sold her soul to Jeffrey and she’s too smart to claim she was hoodwinked. She was aware of what she was doing.
‘She looked up to Jeffrey like he was Zeus — she worshipped him. She clearly knew how perverted he was, but it didn’t stop her becoming his accomplice.
‘I never got the feeling he was in love with her, but they gave off the aura of being a couple. But it was Ghislaine worshipping Jeffrey and making sure he was the centre of attention in a room.’
The trial included a photo of Ghislaine maxwell, wearing a bikini and relaxing on a yacht.
Epstein and Maxwell were seen in one of the photos in which they are seen in vacation pictures in Europe. It was established by the prosecution that the couple had a close relationship, which went beyond the business side.
Maxwell said that Maxwell would not testify at her trial because the government hadn’t proven its case beyond any reasonable doubt.
Hay says he was put in touch with Jeffrey by a mutual real-estate mogul friend ‘when he was trying to rehabilitate his reputation. He said: “I’m tired of every story about me starting with the words, ‘Billionaire paedophile. . .’” So we talked about how he could flip the switch, signing up to Bill Gates’s Giving Pledge, giving money to charities, having a meeting with the Pope . . .
‘He said to me: “There’s one thing you can’t ask me to do and that’s to get married.” I said: “Do you mean to Ghislaine?” And he smiled and said: “To anybody.”
‘They are toxic waste in New York. Everyone is ashamed they had anything to do with them, but no one knew about the depths of their depravity.’
Photographs that emerged during Maxwell’s trial expose a relationship more complex than the symbiotic one Hay has depicted.
The two show Maxwell admiring Epstein while he is flying in his private plane and massaging his feet. In another, she cosies up to him outside a log cabin on the Queen’s estate at Balmoral. Another cache uncovered by police shows them kissing and she is seen admiring him.
Maxwell, a younger version of Epstein can be seen riding a motorcycle with Epstein. In the Maxwell sex-trafficking case, the prosecution submitted the undated photograph as evidence
These photos were taken during an FBI raid on Epstein’s Manhattan home in 2019. They offer a graphic look into Epstein and his high-flying lifestyle.
It appeared that the couple was on vacation to a cold location. In an undated photograph, the couple was pictured together wearing warm coats and big fur hats.
Christina Oxenberg is a fashion designer and author who sees the relationship only as mutually selfish. She is the daughter of Prince Andrew and Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia.
It was a very strange encounter she had with Ghislaine back in 1990. ‘I didn’t warm to her. She was absurdly overconfident and had a total lack of self-awareness.’
Ms Oxenberg had been invited to Maxwell’s New York apartment for tea with three female friends.
‘It was a hot day and Ghislaine was wearing only a bra and panties, white and frilly,’ she recalls.
‘It was tolerated because it was Ghislaine. Her reputation was for shocking people and saying crazy things.
‘People called her “witty”, though I’ll never know why because I never heard or saw anything like wit from her. She was a non-stop spectacle, a performer,’ says Ms Oxenberg, who wrote Trash: Encounters With Ghislaine Maxwell.
‘Despite having top-notch connections and the best education, including a degree from Oxford, I think Ghislaine’s upbringing with an overbearing father gave her a lot of psychological baggage and left her seeking another father figure.
This undated photograph, submitted by the government as evidence of the case, shows the pair sitting together in the grass and a dog.
Epstein is seen with Ghislaine wrapped around his arm as he makes a call to this evidence photo.
According to the prosecution, Maxwell and Epstein were referred to as ‘partners of crime’. In this evidence photo, Maxwell can be seen cuddling up with Epstein in the photos.
‘She also told me her father had warned her to stay away from people who are poor. “Don’t make friends with poor people,” she’d say. “Only make friends with rich people — important people. And then that’s who you will be.” ’
Others are certain that Epstein loved her. Author and investigative journalist Conchita Sarnoff — who, despite being offered bribes to stay silent, exposed the truth about Epstein’s paedophilia — views their relationship as more nuanced.
She was in the same area as Maxwell and Epstein in the 1990s. At a London party, hosted by mutual friends, she first encountered him and then met Ghislaine.
‘She wasn’t dating Epstein at the time and I found her charming, very funny and witty with a wicked sense of humour,’ says Ms Sarnoff. ‘She was an eccentric English woman. She was also very affected by what had happened to her father.’
It seems Ghislaine was attracted to abusive, powerful men. Robert Maxwell, a newspaper magnate, was the father of her mother. He was an intimidating bully. He could be charming and charming, however.
A photo of Ghislaine was kept on his desk. But so volatile were his moods, he was as likely to tell her to ‘f*** off’ as to embrace her when she sought his attention.
The yacht that Maxwell fell from in 1991 to his death was called Lady Ghislaine, after his favourite child. And like Epstein, Robert Maxwell was a crook: after his death, it emerged he had plundered hundreds of millions of pounds from his companies’ pension funds.
Maxwell was seen in a private airplane. The identity of the plane is not known.
Ms Sarnoff was surprised when she learned Ghislaine and Epstein — who apparently met in 1992 at a New York party — were dating, so ill-matched were they socially.
‘I first saw them together at a party at Palm Beach,’ she says. ‘I spoke to Ghislaine and she said: “I’m living with Jeffrey.” I never imagined them together. According to what she said, her father raised her to marry an aristocrat.
‘They met right after her father had died. And she felt protected and powerful with Epstein.’ But it is also pertinent that Epstein came into Ghislaine’s life soon after her break-up from dashing Italian businessman and stunt pilot Count Gianfranco Cicogna.
The aristocrat — who was the grandson of Mussolini’s finance minister and a member of the wealthy Ciga Hotels clan — began a romance with her in 1986.
He was much older than she, and is often credited for shaping her into the woman that she is today. Friends shared with him where she should have her hair cut, and what she should wear.
Their divorce in 1990 left her vulnerable.
lonely: the stage was set for Epstein’s entrance into her life in 1992.
‘At first he respected her. Eventually, I believe, he grew to love her,’ says Ms Sarnoff of Epstein’s feelings.
‘The problem as I saw it was that Ghislaine continued to cave in to his demands and he began to disrespect her. The relationship spiralled in a negative direction.’
It seems that Robert Maxwell’s ghost is still haunting Ghislaine, who was used to pleasing monsters. ‘She grew up in a very difficult household,’ says Ms Sarnoff. ‘As a very bright child with sensitive antennae, she witnessed the manifestation of very negative attributes in her parents’ marriage.
‘But whatever her father was, Ghislaine was bright enough to understand right from wrong.’
GhislaineMaxwell was found guilty of the charges of sex traficking. Maxwell denies sex trafficking and other charges and had been awaiting trial for over a year in ‘hell-hole’ federal prison in Brooklyn
Yet when Ms Sarnoff confronted Maxwell about the allegations against her, she says: ‘She did not sound guilty, ashamed or alarmed, but merely dismissive. Her attitude was that I shouldn’t pay any attention because it was sheer nonsense. She was simply a girlfriend hiring his masseuses, and they had all been legitimate and weren’t under age.’
The exact nature of Epstein and Maxwell’s relationship during the period of the criminal charges filed against her — 1994 to 2004 — was blurred.
Epstein, who was addicted to sex, had to have constant satisfaction from Maxwell’s string of young girls.
In the meantime, she had many other love interests. Ted Waitt, 58, billionaire founder of the Gateway computer company became her boyfriend around 2005 — the year in which Florida police started to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct against Epstein, prompting Maxwell to begin distancing herself from him.
The couple split in 2010. Waitt was suffering from the stress of Epstein’s plea to guilty for procuring minors for prostitution.
When, precisely, Maxwell stopped sharing Epstein’s bed has been a matter of intense speculation. One British writer now living in New York — who did not want to be identified — observes: ‘The photographs of Ghislaine rubbing his feet on the plane [the date on which the pictures were taken remains obscure]This indicates how physical intimate and connected they were. It also shows that he was very attractive to her sexually.
‘Was she in love with him? Yes. Yes. She asked him to marry them. Epstein would entertain other women while his butler took away any sign that she was there.
‘Did he love her? I don’t know. He said that she was his best friend. She was fascinated by him, even though he was strange and unsettling.
‘I saw them together at an art opening and they were joined at the hip. That was her confidence. His appearance was not only handsome but also awkward. He seemed insecure.
‘He also had this permanent sneer on his face, as if he was privy to knowledge that any normal person could only dream of.
‘They were almost never seen together at parties because he was a social klutz. He was a big talker. Ghislaine, on the other hand was extremely social, charmant, funny, and engaging.
‘Epstein offered her financial security and was also a replacement for her — frankly repugnant — father, so he had a good deal to offer her.
‘There’s no doubt Ghislaine facilitated amazing things for him, such as the trip to Balmoral. For a Brooklyn-raised boy, it was quite an achievement. It would never have happened without Ghislaine.’
Today, as she confronts the cost of her collusion with Epstein, one man has been notably absent from the courtroom — her husband Scott Borgerson, 45, the wealthy boss of a shipping technology firm whom she married covertly in 2015.
‘He is personable, very bright and intelligent, but he is an extreme narcissist, totally in love with himself, money and power,’ says a neighbour who claims Mr Borgerson harbours ambitions of one day becoming U.S. President.
If the assessment is accurate, it is obvious that GhislaineMaxwell is unerringly good at picking the wrong men.