Les Wexner Says He Drew Epstein a Pair of Boobs 'to Be Funny' - The Cut

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Leslie Wexner, the former owner of Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, created a trailblazing retail empire that made him one of the richest men in the country. On Wednesday, a group of five Democratic House representatives traveled to Ohio to question him about his connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Between 1991 and 2007, Wexner gave Epstein near total control over his money as his personal financial adviser — a trust that Wexner claims Epstein abused by stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from his family. But the true nature of Wexner’s relationship with Epstein remains a subject of public fascination and speculation — before Epstein met Wexner, he had worked as a high-school math teacher and been nearly fired from Bear Stearns. Wexner has denied that he knew about Epstein’s alleged crimes, but largely avoided answering any questions about his relationship with the accused sex trafficker until Wednesday.

In the nearly five-hour deposition, the full video of which was released on Thursday, the retired executive painted himself as naïvely gullible to Epstein’s tricks, contrary to his reputation as a meticulous businessman with exacting standards who was the longest-serving CEO of a Fortune 500 company when he retired. He claimed not to know how much money Epstein allegedly stole from him over their nearly two decades working together, or why Epstein seemed to be making quarterly $25,000 payments to an obstetrician on his behalf. One thing Wexner does remember, however, is writing a note in Epstein’s 50th-birthday book, a collection of letters organized by Ghislaine Maxwell that also includes a crude drawing allegedly done by Donald Trump (who has denied drawing it). “He was a bachelor, so I drew a pair of boobs,” Wexner said of his own illustration. “I was trying to be funny.”

It was a rare admission during an interrogation in which Wexner, 88, repeatedly insisted he was never close friends with Epstein, contrary to many reports (including my own book about Victoria’s Secret). Throughout the interview, Wexner seemed nervous but, more often, amused. When asked if he had ever had a sexual relationship with Epstein, he giggled and described himself as “super straight.” At another point, he laughed after his lawyer interrupted him and whispered in his ear, loud enough for the mic to pick up: “I’ll fucking kill you if you answer another question with more than five words, okay?”

Despite his assumption that Epstein would appreciate a cartoon drawing of breasts for his birthday, Wexner also claims to have never known Epstein as an international playboy but as a man in a series of monogamous relationships. “He was with adult women, women that looked adult,” said Wexner. He didn’t know how Epstein ended up at Victoria’s Secret fashion shows, but did remember seeing him there with Trump, who Wexner said “would always introduce himself to me, and I always thought it was kind of odd that he was at the fashion show because he had nothing to do with fashion.” Wexner said he had read reporting about Epstein’s activities but claimed to have never heard the name of one of his most prominent victims, Virginia Giuffre.

Wexner admitted that he visited Epstein’s infamous island once, calling it “crummy” and a “pile of rocks.” He remembered hearing that Epstein falsely represented himself to women as a model recruiter for Victoria’s Secret — once from one of his executives in the early 1990s and another time after a woman filed a police report alleging Epstein assaulted her in a hotel room in 1997. Wexner said he confronted Epstein about the stories but believed him when he denied that both incidents ever occurred. When asked why he didn’t doubt Epstein’s version of events, he offered, “You can’t imagine how busy I was.”

Wexner also claimed not to remember how he heard about the investigation that led to Epstein pleading guilty to soliciting sex from a minor in Florida in 2008. According to Wexner’s version of events, he and his family dropped Epstein as an adviser when they caught wind of the investigation and later discovered that he had stolen their money. “Once we knew how bad he was, he was dead,” Wexner said. He seemed to have no regrets about keeping Epstein’s alleged theft private, an omission that left Epstein free to secure other billionaire clients and, as prosecutors alleged at the time of his arrest in 2019, use his vast wealth to sexually exploit and abuse dozens of underage girls.

Wexner also denied knowing anything about the house Epstein owned a half-mile from Wexner’s megamansion outside Columbus, where Maria Farmer said she was assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell in 1996, and that Wexner’s security team prevented her from leaving. (Farmer has also claimed the house was on Wexner’s property.) On Wednesday, Wexner said he “didn’t know shit about her,” countering that the house was not his property and that Epstein had bought it from one of Wexner’s business partners. When a congressman showed him the deed of sale with his own signature as the seller, Wexner appeared dumbfounded. “Just shocking,” he said, throwing his hands up. “Does it occur to you that stuff like that could be just forgeries?”