Epstein Files hint at his ties to the Supermodel Naomi Campbell

In the millions of documents released by the U.S. Justice Department related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, one of the fashion world’s most recognisable names emerges again and again: Naomi Campbell.

Email exchanges reflect that Campbell, 55, asked to fly on his private plane and said she would meet Epstein at his New York mansion.

He was invited on her behalf to lavish events around the world. These plans were mostly coordinated through Epstein’s longtime assistant Lesley Groff.

And in interviews with federal investigators, unnamed victims said that Epstein introduced them to the British supermodel at social events, and that they saw the model in his mansion and on his island.

The revelation of Campbell’s close association with Epstein came as U.S. Attorney-General Pam Bondi said all the Epstein files related to the investigation into the child ex trafficker before he took his own life had been released.

More than 300 high‑profile names appear in the documents, including Donald Trump, Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Bruce Springsteen.

Beleaguered UK royal Andrew, who was accused of having underage sex with Virginia Giuffre, is at the centre of the Epstein fallout, and today it was reported he took one of Epstein’s aides on UK Government trade envoy trips to China and Hong Kong.

The damning documents show that Campbell stayed in Epstein’s orbit long after he was convicted in Florida in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor, and shed new light on the extent of their ties.

Their interactions provide another example of how Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan prison cell in 2019, leveraged and influenced a vast, powerful social network as he lured girls and young women into his life.

Campbell’s association with Epstein had previously become public through legal proceedings involving him, his longtime companion Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a federal prison sentence on sex-trafficking charges, and others.

A lawyer for Campbell, Martin Singer, said in a lengthy emailed statement that his client had no knowledge of Epstein’s “heinous criminal conduct until after his 2019 arrest” and had no contact with him after that.

“Prior to Epstein’s 2019 arrest in New York, my client knew nothing about his appalling criminal conduct,” Singer wrote in the statement. “If my client had ever encountered any young woman whom she thought was being victimised by Epstein, she would have personally taken immediate action to help her.” He added that Campbell was living in Moscow from 2008 to 2013 and “she had no idea that Epstein was a registered sex offender.”

Campbell has not been accused of any wrongdoing. The FBI interviews with victims did not contain any corroborating evidence of their statements related to Campbell.

A review by The New York Times found that Campbell’s name appears in nearly 300 documents released by the Justice Department, including some duplicate entries, making her a well-known female celebrity figure in documents also populated by powerful men, including former President Clinton, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and President Trump.

One document titled “List of People Who Need JE’s Address!” lists Campbell and several dozen other people under a set of instructions on how to mail letters, postcards and books to the Florida jail where Epstein began serving his sentence in the summer of 2008.

According to Singer, Campbell “has no idea who created this list or why her name appears on this document. She never asked anyone for Epstein’s address to communicate with him in jail in Florida.”

When recruiting young women, Epstein seemed to dangle his association with Campbell to convince them that a modeling career was within reach, according to FBI interview transcripts. In 2020, an unnamed victim who met Epstein when she was 15 said that Epstein had promised to get her jobs at Victoria’s Secret and told her that he knew Campbell, who has walked in the brand’s famed fashion shows, and Leslie Wexner, who was then the chief executive of the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, L Brands. (For years, Epstein managed Wexner’s finances.) The same victim said she was introduced to Campbell at Epstein’s private office.

In the emailed statement, Singer said that Campbell was never under contract with the lingerie brand, and added that if Epstein used her name to “impress anyone or to build trust with them, he did that entirely without her knowledge or authorization.”

Another victim, in interviews in 2019 with the FBI, said that when she was 18 years old and being introduced to Epstein, she saw Campbell at his New York mansion during a dinner party. Another victim claimed in interviews, also in 2019, to have seen Campbell on Epstein’s island.

Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most outspoken victims, who died by suicide last year, had also previously reported in 2016 that Epstein introduced her to Campbell, according to court documents.

In the statement, Campbell’s lawyer noted that she and “a group of people going to an F1 race” were briefly on Epstein’s island “on a transfer from a commercial flight.” He also said that Campbell did not recall ever meeting with Epstein’s victims and was “never at his house for any social event or gathering” but that she did visit his home office for “3 or 4 business meetings.”

After Epstein was released from prison in 2009 and was a registered sex offender, he stayed in contact with Campbell, seemingly providing her with access to his network.

In one 2010 email exchange, Epstein instructs his assistant, Groff, to invite Linda Wachner, the former chief executive of the apparel business Warnaco Group, to his house to meet Campbell and an associate. The next day, his assistant informed him that “Naomi is confirmed.”

In his emailed statement, Singer said that Campbell did meet with Wachner as she “was trying to do a lingerie and swimwear line” and Epstein “led her to believe that he could assist with that.” Wachner’s lawyer said that her client joined the meeting virtually; lawyers for both women confirmed that nothing came of the meeting.

That same year, Epstein was invited to Campbell’s surprise 40th-birthday party in Cannes, France, which was described in the email as “a private event for her closest friends and family.” According to her lawyer, Campbell did not make the guest list, and Epstein did not attend the party.

Epstein was also invited to an event in Paris to celebrate Campbell’s 25-year career with the luxury fashion house Dolce & Gabbana. An unsigned response to the emailed invitation read: “Jeffrey will come plus two.” Campbell’s lawyer said that Epstein did come, along with Maxwell, and “that they stayed for approximately 20 minutes.”

Their relationship seemed to go beyond frequenting the same elite party circuits. Campbell’s online correspondence indicates that the model felt comfortable sharing the granular details of her schedule with Groff and Epstein. A 2010 email to Epstein from Groff, for example, informed him that “Naomi Campbell was having a facial and said she will call back.”

“I want to see Jeffrey,” Campbell wrote in a 2015 email to Groff discussing her upcoming travel plans. She signed off with, “exhausted babes.”

In one 2016 email exchange, an associate of Epstein asks if Campbell can use “the plane.” Later, in that same exchange, another associate of Epstein is instructed to find a charter for Campbell “to go from NY to Miami tonight and fly back on sat or Sunday!!”

In his emailed statement, Campbell’s lawyer said that his client “was on Epstein’s plane on a few occasions but she never observed any inappropriate conduct of any kind.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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