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under mysterious circumstances after reportedly having fallen overboard from the yacht. It was later
discovered that he was in a significant amount of debt at the time of his death, and had embezzled
from his employees' pension fund.
Before her father's death, Maxwell had already started building her credentials as a British socialite
and philanthropist; she founded the Kit-Cat Club, a social organization for working women, and
also served as director for a football club her father owned. Following her father's passing, however,
she moved to the United States, eager to escape the scrutiny of the U.K. tabloids. While she started out
working in real estate and living on the (relatively) modest trust fund sum of $100,000 a year, Maxwell
quickly rebounded from her father's passing and subsequent disgrace, according to a 2000 New York
Post profile, relying on the Maxwell family's powerful network of famous friends to regain her position
in the social world.
For the past two decades, Maxwell has held the types of board positions and charitable foundation
advisory roles favored by the uber-wealthy, founding the charitable organization the TerraMar Project,
which works to preserve the world's oceans, in 2012. She also continued to cultivate friendships
with extremely high-powered individuals such as Trump and Prince Andrew, reportedly introducing
Epstein to the latter in 1997 and former President Bill Clinton, even appearing as a guest at Chelsea
Clinton's wedding in 2010.
What is Ghislaine Maxwell's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?
According to the 2000 New York Post profile of Maxwell, Epstein and Maxwell began dating in the late 1990s;
the piece not-so-subtly implies that Maxwell largely viewed Epstein, who at that point had become extremely
wealthy from his investment firm J. Epstein & Co., as a strategic launch pad for her career as a New York City
philanthropist and socialite. Although their romantic relationship later fizzled out, the two developed a dose
platonic bond, according to a 2003 Vanity Fair profile of Epstein, in which he refers to Maxwell as his "best
friend." The Vanity Fair profile depicts Maxwell as something of a high-end assistant to Epstein, with journalist
Vicky Ward writing that Maxwell "seems to organize much of his life," even making appointments with personal
yoga instructors for Epstein.
What is Ghislaine Maxwell's relationship to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes?
According to those who have accused Epstein of sexual abuse, Maxwell's predilection for managing his
life extended to his sex life as well. In 2018, Epstein and Maxwell settled a lawsuit brought against
them by a woman named , who that Maxwell hired her to give Epstein
massages at his home. Between 2006 and 2007, alleged, the two promised to pay her tuition
to FIT in exchange for providing sexual favors to Epstein and his friends, including lawyer
Alan Dershowitz. (Dershowitz has repeatedly denied the charges; suit was settled in
2018 under undisclosed terms.)
Last April, another woman and former Epstein employee, alleged that Maxwell and
Epstein had sexually abused her and her 15-year-old sister on two separate occasions in the
mid-1990s. She also alleged that she frequently saw a "number of school-age girls" come to Epstein's
New York City home. "When I asked Maxwell why these young girls were coming over to the house so
often she said that the girls were interviewing for modeling positions," said. "At the time,
based on my observations at the home, it did not seem credible to me that these young girls were
interviewing for modeling positions."
allegations surfaced as the result of a defamation lawsuit filed against Dershowitz by
,who also named Maxwell in a 2015 civil suit against Epstein. In the sult,ethen
identified as Jane Doe 3) alleged that during the summer of 1999, when she was 16 years old and
working as a towel girl at Trump's Palm Beach resort Mar-a-Lago, Maxwell recruited her to serve as
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