Chapter Thirty-Eight Nobody’s Girl
Thirty-eight
Nobody’s Girl
As I was beginning work on this book, one of my sons invited a new friend over, and when his mother—a woman I’d never met before—dropped him off, I invited her inside.
When she sat down at our kitchen island, I offered her a cold drink, which is right about the time that she recognized me.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “It’s you.” I smiled and nodded. This had happened to me before.
The woman was uncomfortable, I could see—her eyes were darting around, as if she was now unsure what to say.
For a moment, the fact that I was a well-known survivor of sexual abuse hung awkwardly in the air between us.
Then the woman kindly said, “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it. It’s probably embarrassing.”
I kept smiling, even though inside I felt an old twinge: Why should I be ashamed?
I’d been a child when I was abused by adults.
“No, it’s not embarrassing,” I replied. “And we should be talking about it. Because this is happening out there, and it’s going to continue to happen unless we talk about it.
” Not wanting to sound as if I were lecturing her, I suggested we go out for a drink sometime, out of the earshot of our kids.
Sexual trafficking should not be a secret, only to be whispered about in hushed tones or not at all.
It is a horrible trauma-inducing crime, and we must talk about it if we ever want it to end.
That’s part of why I wrote this book, and I’ve tried, on every page, to be transparent.
I’ve made mistakes in my life, and I’ve had moments I’m not proud of.
But I haven’t let those human flaws keep me from telling my story.
As my collaborator and I worked together to finish this book, she sent me a line by the writer Helen Rosner that rings true to me: “Memoir is the art of shining a light behind you, picking at the stitches of your life to see how it was made.” That’s what I’ve tried to do: to examine my life in the hope of destigmatizing victims’ experiences.
Because only by speaking out can we move ourselves and others to act.
I’m sorry to say that for all that’s happened, more action is needed.
Much more. Because some people still think Epstein was an anomaly, an outlier.
And those people are wrong. While the sheer number of victims Epstein preyed upon may put him in a class by himself, he was no outlier.
The way he viewed women and girls—as playthings to be used and discarded—is not uncommon among certain powerful men who believe they are above the law.
And many of those men are still going about their daily lives, enjoying the benefits of their power.
Don’t be fooled by those in Epstein’s circle who say they didn’t know what Epstein was doing.
Anyone who spent any significant amount of time with Epstein saw him touching girls in ways you wouldn’t want a creepy old man touching your daughter.
They can say they didn’t know he was raping children.
But they were not blind. (Not to mention the fact that many prominent people were still associating with him years after his conviction.) Epstein offered many of the men in his circle sex with the females he and Maxwell trafficked—both girls and women.
I know because I lived it. But even the men who didn’t partake of the favors Epstein offered could see the naked photos on his walls and the naked girls on his islands or by his swimming pools.
Epstein not only didn’t hide what was happening, he took a certain glee in making people watch.
Because he could. And people did watch—scientists, fundraisers from the Ivy League and other heralded institutions, titans of industry. They watched and they didn’t care.
Epstein is dead, but the attitude that allowed him to do what he did? It’s alive and well. Yes, #MeToo has led to certain prominent men losing their jobs. Other men have gone to prison.
But just because justice has been served in a handful of high-profile cases doesn’t mean we’ve solved the larger problem: a culture that tells girls their primary worth is to appeal to men; a culture that tells men that young girls are the ideal—the younger, as Epstein said, the better.
I’m not saying those cultural trends cause most men to become child molesters.
But I do believe that because of those societal forces, when a molester shows his face, many people tend to look the other way.
Even as I’ve chronicled my history with Epstein and Maxwell, much has happened to keep the two of them in the news.
The sale of Epstein’s properties, for example: his Palm Beach home was sold to a developer for $18.
5 million. It has been torn down and is being redeveloped with a different address; in the future, there will be no number 358 on El Brillo Way.
Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse sold for $51 million.
His two islands in the Caribbean sold for $60 million—roughly half what they were listed for a year earlier—to a developer who plans to build a twenty-five-room resort there.
His New Mexico ranch, listed for $27.5 million in July 2021, sold to an anonymous buyer for an undisclosed sum in August 2023.
And most recently, his Paris apartment sold to a Bulgarian investor for 8.
2 million pounds. The money raised in these transactions has gone to Epstein’s estate, which has helped fund restitution for victims.
As expected, Maxwell—who resides in an all-female, low-security facility in Tallahassee—has appealed her conviction.
(In August 2024, that appeal was denied.) She also gave an interview from prison in which she repeated the lie that the photo Epstein took of Prince Andrew with his arm around me is a fake.
In response, Michael Thomas, the New Zealand photographer who visited me in Australia back in 2011 and took a photo of my original photo, front and back, came forward to say definitively, “It’s not fake, and it never has been. ” Not all men are monsters.
In the wake of my settlement with Alan Dershowitz, various media outlets have suggested that Prince Andrew might try to overturn his and my settlement agreement.
The Sun, in London, reported, for example, that the disgraced royal was consulting with US lawyers and hoping “to force a retraction or even an apology.” David Boies fired back in a wide-ranging interview with the Daily Mail.
“If they want to get out of the settlement,” he said, “all they have to do is call me and let me take Andrew’s deposition and go to trial.
” To date, Boies has received no such call.
Prince Andrew, meanwhile, was allowed to attend King Charles III’s coronation in May 2023, but with no formal role and a third-row seat.
In Trafalgar Square, hundreds of antimonarchy protesters stood among a throng of royal supporters, waiting for the coronation procession to pass, and I enjoyed looking at photos of the placards they held online.
Many people held signs that read “Not My King,” and one protester lifted a huge hand-lettered banner that said simply “God Save Virginia Giuffre.”
Various Epstein-related lawsuits have continued to make their way through the courts.
In March 2023, a judge ruled that two banks who had Epstein as a customer for several years—Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase—had to face lawsuits alleging that the banks profited from Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.
Both banks soon reached tentative settlements, promising approximately $75 million and $290 million, respectively, to the plaintiffs—more than forty women who said the banks had facilitated Epstein’s abuse of them.
(I was among the plaintiffs in the JPMorgan class action.) JPMorgan also eventually settled a lawsuit filed by the US Virgin Islands, agreeing to “significant commitments” to curtail human trafficking, and a $75 million payment.
That suit alleged that Jes Staley, a former top executive at the bank, “may have been involved in Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.
” Court papers in that case showed that Epstein shared photographs of young women with Staley, and that the two men emailed each other using what appeared to be code words based on Disney characters.
“That was fun. Say hi to Snow White,” Staley, then fifty-three, emailed Epstein in July 2010.
“What character would you like next?” Epstein—then fifty-seven—replied.
“Beauty and the Beast,” Staley responded, to which Epstein replied: “Well one side is available.”
It’s not hard to imagine what Epstein meant—he had “beauties” at the ready.
—
The other day, Ellie and I were in the car, heading to her volleyball practice, when she took control of the stereo and cued up a song called “Mad at Disney,” performed by Salem Ilese.
“You have to listen to this, Mom,” she said, pushing play.
“I’m mad at Disney, Disney / They tricked me, tricked me / Had me wishin’ on a shootin’ star,” Ellie sang at top volume over the music.
She knew all the words. “My fairy grandma warned me / Cinderella’s story / Only ended in a bad divorce,” she sang.
“The prince ain’t sleeping when he / Takes his sleeping beauty / To the motel on his snow-white horse.
” Ellie shot me a glance. At thirteen, she knows more than she lets on.
As I’ve said, I watched Cinderella on repeat when I was a child, and I internalized some of the messages it taught me about femininity and what happiness looks like for a girl.
As a young mother, I went into a baby boutique before Ellie’s birth and said I wanted “everything princess.” But now, as the mother of teenagers, I appreciate that my daughter is more skeptical than I was about some of the pressures and stereotypes society puts on girls of all ages.