One of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, former model Juliette Bryant, has claimed that she was lured into the web of the late convicted sex offender by a woman who claimed the financier could jump-start her modelling career.
Speaking to The Daily Beast in her first in-depth media interview about surviving Epstein’s sex ring, Bryant said that she was “a silly young 20-year-old and thought it sounded like such an amazing opportunity considering the people he was with”.
She said that her first meeting with Epstein took place in September 2002 at a Cape Town cocktail lounge, where former US President Bill Clinton was also present.
“That’s what gave Epstein credibility. The fact that he was with Clinton,” Bryant noted, adding that the former POTUS holding onto her hand “was like a dream” and “was so bizarre”.
She admitted that she was “completely conned” by the convicted paedophile, and that she “wouldn’t go with some random man to the Caribbean”.
“[Epstein] seemed legitimate. Clinton gave him credibility,” the former model reiterated, separately arguing that the financier preferred to share a hotel suite with the 42nd US president and was concerned about being poisoned.
“Epstein always had platters because I think he was scared of being poisoned. There were platters of food for everyone, and he’d pick off other people’s plates. It was weird,” Bryant said.
The Daily Beast interview came after Bryant - now a business owner and mother based in South Africa - spoke to BBC Two for its new series about Epstein’s former girlfriend and now-convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. The broadcaster’s “House of Maxwell” premiered on Monday.
She told the BBC about her staying on Epstein’s so-called “Paedophile Island” in the Caribbean, asserting that she “was being ordered to his bedroom at least three times a day”.
“I just checked out of my body and let him do what he wanted because I didn’t know what else to do […] It was just like a factory […] he was running a machine and Ghislaine Maxwell was the one operating it,” the former model claimed.
Bryant spoke after filing a lawsuit in 2019 against Epstein’s estate, alleging that the convicted sex offender raped her repeatedly for years at his homes in Paris, Palm Beach, and New York, as well as at his compound in New Mexico and private island in the US Virgin Islands.
As for Epstein, he served a 13-month sentence in the United States on charges of soliciting an underage girl for prostitution in 2005. In July 2019, he was arrested again, on suspicion of running a sex-trafficking ring that lured underage girls to his New York and Florida estate to attend sex parties.
Later that month, Epstein, who was facing up to 45 years behind bars upon conviction, committed suicide in his prison cell during his pre-trial detention in Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Centre, according to the official version.
The cause of his death, however, remains disputed and conspiracy theories have speculated that he was murdered to prevent him from testifying against his high-profile friends, who, as well as Bill Clinton, included former US President Donald Trump and Prince Andrew.
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