Slept With Epstein Once, Thought We Are Going To... Ghislaine Maxwell

Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein, has revealed that she "slept" with him once and at first thought it would end in a romantic relationship. Telling the US Department of Justice in an interview recently, she remembered: "Slept with him one time and thought, 'we're going to be dating'."

"That's the world I came from," she added.

The interview, conducted earlier last month in Florida with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, had Maxwell reminisce about how she thought her relationship with Epstein would evolve into romance but found herself becoming more and more entrenched in his life.

Currently serving a federal prison term, Maxwell described running into Epstein in 1991, shortly after her own engagement ended and she relocated to New York. She mentioned that he had been "in search of a wife" then. "I met him at his offices on Madison Garden (sic). And I think the most memorable thing I can think about is that he was wearing a tie, which he didn't often do," she said.

Their relationship, however, did not at once become intimate. Epstein, she explained, first requested her to help him find an apartment. As she showed him to a new apartment, she herself moved into a smaller apartment, calling Epstein her "lifeline" at the time.

She envisioned herself as the "general manager" of Epstein's enormous portfolio of properties over time, in addition to being drawn further into his personal life, based on audio recordings and transcripts published on August 22 and chronicled by The New York Post.

Between 1992 and 1996, Maxwell and Epstein's personal and professional lives grew deeply intertwined. They traveled together and frequently slept in the same bed, though, as Maxwell said in interviews, they infrequently made love. "Epstein informed me that he had a heart condition, which meant that he did not have intercourse much, which was okay with me, since I do happen to have a medical condition which excludes me from having a lot of intercourse," she said. "Epstein enjoyed other sexual activities," she added.

Maxwell told of spending most of her days with Epstein in his office, sometimes keeping track of the number of times a day she saw him. She eventually went on his payroll at a salary of $25,000 a year, which later increased to $250,000 as she oversaw his multi-million-dollar real estate empire.

By 1999, Maxwell said, their sexual relationship had largely dissipated. She said the September 11 attacks were the turning point for her. It was a frightening time if you lived in New York…And he was on 71st Street, and I was on 65th Street at my home. And he wouldn't visit me at all," she said. "Then I knew…if you're not ever going to be there for someone on 9/11, you're never going to be there. So for me, that was the line's end."

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of assisting in the recruitment and grooming of underage girls for Epstein and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Epstein himself died in jail in Brooklyn in 2019.