The New York Times reviewed Virginia Giuffre’s posthumously published memoir, Nobody’s Girl. They called it “devastating” and extremely sad. Virginia was sexually abused from the age of 7 years old by her father, and then her father “traded” her to a family friend. She was also sexually assaulted by other men before Ghislaine Maxwell even saw her at Mar-a-Lago when she (Virginia) was just 16 years old. The NY Times notes that the most difficult sections of the memoir are the parts where Virginia is being trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Here’s the section of the review I wanted to talk about:
By now we’ve all heard of Little St. James Island, nicknamed Little St. Jeff’s, the 72-acre circle of hell in the Caribbean where so many girls were transported and coerced into servicing Epstein’s rich and powerful friends.
Rape, for her, came to seem routine: by older teens; by a construction worker after hitchhiking; by the ringleader of a high-priced escort service, who introduced her to hard drugs; and by an associate of his busted by the F.B.I., which returned her to … her father.
By then Sky Roberts was working in maintenance at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, and got her a job there as a towel attendant. Observing the masseuses in the plush spa, she thought this might be a career path.
The rest is horror story. (“Please don’t stop reading,” Giuffre writes at one point, acknowledging the cumulative effect of her “trauma reel.”) Sex with Marvin Minsky, an M.I.T. scientist 56 years her senior, his face “shriveled like one of those folk-art dolls whose heads are dried-up apples”; orgies staffed by the model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, who — like Epstein — died by suicide in prison; choking, beating and bloodying from a former prime minister, whom she refused to name because “I fear that this man will seek to hurt me if I say his name here.”
Having been ordered to tuck Epstein, her chief tormentor, into pink satin sheets at night, and shown his snapshots of underage nude girls as if they were etchings, Giuffre still summons the compassion to speculate that he, too, may have been abused as a child.
“Former prime minister” is all anyone has to go on – she didn’t specify which country, and this would have been 2000-01. In the UK, the “former prime ministers” still alive would have been John Major, Margaret Thatcher, James Callaghan, Edward Heath… end of list. It could be a former Canadian prime minister. One person on Twitter had a theory that it could be Israel’s former PM Ehud Barak, who was reportedly close to Epstein. Barak is still alive, he’s in his 80s, so Virginia would have wanted to be especially careful not to name someone still alive, right? He was PM of Israel from 1999 through 2001. Is he the guy? Ugh. But as Giuffre’s memoir makes abundantly clear, Epstein’s circle at that time included so many powerful men, so many well-connected men.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
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- Virginia Roberts talks about how she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and allegedly had sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 on 'Panorama, The Prince and the Epstein Scandal'. Broadcast on BBC One,Image: 486024837, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WENN does not claim any ownership including but not limited to Copyright, License in attached material. Fees charged by WENN are for WENN's services only, do not, nor are they intended to, convey to the user any ownership of Copyright, License in material. By publishing this material you expressly agree to indemnify, to hold WENN, its directors, shareholders, employees harmless from any loss, claims, damages, demands, expenses (including legal fees), any causes of action, allegation against WENN arising out of, connected in any way with publication of the material., Model Release: no, Pictured: Virginia Roberts,Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Credit line: /Wenn/Avalon
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- Virginia Roberts talks about how she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and allegedly had sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 on 'Panorama, The Prince and the Epstein Scandal'. Broadcast on BBC One,Image: 486024910, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WENN does not claim any ownership including but not limited to Copyright, License in attached material. Fees charged by WENN are for WENN's services only, do not, nor are they intended to, convey to the user any ownership of Copyright, License in material. By publishing this material you expressly agree to indemnify, to hold WENN, its directors, shareholders, employees harmless from any loss, claims, damages, demands, expenses (including legal fees), any causes of action, allegation against WENN arising out of, connected in any way with publication of the material., Model Release: no, Pictured: Virginia Roberts Giuffre,Virginia Roberts, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Credit line: – / Wenn / Avalon
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- Virginia Roberts talks about how she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and allegedly had sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 on 'Panorama, The Prince and the Epstein Scandal'. Broadcast on BBC One,Image: 486030284, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WENN does not claim any ownership including but not limited to Copyright, License in attached material. Fees charged by WENN are for WENN's services only, do not, nor are they intended to, convey to the user any ownership of Copyright, License in material. By publishing this material you expressly agree to indemnify, to hold WENN, its directors, shareholders, employees harmless from any loss, claims, damages, demands, expenses (including legal fees), any causes of action, allegation against WENN arising out of, connected in any way with publication of the material., Model Release: no, Pictured: Virginia Roberts, Credit line: /Wenn/Avalon
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- Virginia Roberts talks about how she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and allegedly had sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 on 'Panorama, The Prince and the Epstein Scandal'. Broadcast on BBC One,Image: 486030291, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WENN does not claim any ownership including but not limited to Copyright, License in attached material. Fees charged by WENN are for WENN's services only, do not, nor are they intended to, convey to the user any ownership of Copyright, License in material. By publishing this material you expressly agree to indemnify, to hold WENN, its directors, shareholders, employees harmless from any loss, claims, damages, demands, expenses (including legal fees), any causes of action, allegation against WENN arising out of, connected in any way with publication of the material., Model Release: no, Pictured: Virginia Roberts, Credit line: /Wenn/Avalon
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- Los Angeles, CA – **FILE PHOTOS** Prince Andrew smiling as he stands with his left arm around the waist of a young Virginia Roberts. It is alleged to have been taken in early 2001. Ghislaine Maxwell stands behind. *Editorial Use Only* see Special Instructions. Pictured: Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts, Ghislaine Maxwell BACKGRID USA 17 NOVEMBER 2019 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
For the love of God, release those bloody files now!!!!
Yep, release the f-cking files. This is heartbreaking.
I want to read this, but honestly don’t know if I can. I’ll have to work up my mettle and up my self-protection habits. This poor, poor woman. Good Gaia.
I’m with you on not being able to read the whole so very horrific truth of what was done to her!!
i”m not sure I can either. i’ll probably do what I did with the Epstein documentary on Netflix – I had to watch basically one episode a week. I’ll probably read one chapter a week of this.
I’m hoping one of the memoir podcasts that I listen to discuss it
Same.
No one will ever convince me she killed herself. If she survived her absolutely horrific life, she was not a candidate for suicide.
She killed herself like Epstein killed himself, if you know what I mean.
@KITTEN
👀👀👀
🎯🎯🎯
Last week, I started to read an excerpt from her memoir. She was brave enough to write about her life, and I wanted to be brave enough to read what she wrote. But I just could not get through it 😭 I hate that her parents failed her. I hate what she went through. From the get-go, she never stood a chance. That breaks my heart.
I would have 100% agreed with you. But just from this preview knowing she was treated as meat as a toddler by adult men.
Makes me think, the weight was just too heavy for her to carry. She needed to put it all down to rest. She was alone and in a terrible place at the time. I don’t know if she did or did not have support team around her at the time. But when people make this kind of decision. So many times their loved ones around them have no idea.
I think she took her life to make the memories stop.
On top of the files will never be released. Trump just used that as bait to incite the masses to vote for him. He never had any intention of exposing himself and his buddies.
I 100% expect Ghislaine Maxwell to be pardoned before or on his last day in office. Unless he pulls a dictatorship move and pronounces himself Emperor for Life. But either way she will get sprung.
I’m conflicted about the suicide . Virginia coped for years as best she could. Getting older could she have just run out of coping skills ? On the other hand, having such a horrible childhood, wouldn’t she have wanted to stay alive for her children? Her wanting to have the memoir published “in case something happens to me ” does support that she was either being threatened with harm o herself or family, or planning to end it all.
She was getting older, but she was also getting a divorce from the man she’d been married to for 20ish years, and he had taken the kids and wasn’t letting her see them. I think her brother said her ex was physically abusive. I can absolutely see her feeling completely trapped, and unable to see a way forward.
But that also creates a really good situation, “convincing” enough for others that someone actually commits suicide.
I think you’re right, and it breaks my heart. For someone like Virginia, while taking her own life would obviously be horribly tragic, you could have the cold comfort that at least she finally found some semblance of peace. Instead, there are unanswered questions, and her surviving loved ones might feel that they need to look over their shoulders forever.
Realize that suicide is often a matter of a really bad day after a series of really bad weeks and that studies of suicide survivors show that the average length of time between the decision and the act is under fifteen minutes.
I’m as conspiracy minded as the next person in terms of whistleblowers being murdered but saying surviving trauma makes you less likely to commit suicide is just dead wrong and deeply cruel.
ITA. In recent years, I’ve read a lot about how conspiracy theories are used to manipulate the less informed and make them feel smart, but there’s a conspiracy and there’s what’s most likely. It didn’t take a conspiracy to suicide Epstein. Only one of the immensely powerful people who had something to lose could have pulled some strings. Same is true about Virginia. She was strong and she had children to live for. The fact that she held back on details makes it especially unlikely that she was planning to suicide before publication.
I wonder if reliving all the horrors to write a coherent memoir might have been too much for her, especially with the divorce looming and the loss of her children.
Don’t look away. Remember every horrific thing Virginia went through when Maxwell gets that pardon.
Yes! It’s horrible and triggering to read her story posthumously yet it’s what Virginia wanted – her full truth to be told in her own words.
Gizz-lane Maxwell deserves to fry for what she extorted, stole from, and ultimately inflicted upon so many young, disadvantaged teenage girls and children trying to thrive and survive.
Poor, poor, sweet girl. Let’s never ever forget her.
I’ve always thought Andrew was blackmailing other p3dos who ensure he can live his life of crazy luxury. How many others are there, I wonder. And God Virginia was so brave!
What I have never understood is how men (many of them Democrats that I respect, for example George Mitchell) would enthusiastically agree to sex with a middle school girl (!). And the cameras were in every room – and not terribly well-concealed. It never occurred to any of them that they were setting themselves up for blackmail? I just don’t get it.
They all knew it was wrong, they all knew it was so risky…but they thought they could get away with it.THAT is the most dangerous thing.
Believing they can do something without consequences empowers a lot of harmful actions.That’s what makes our current time so terrifying. The worst people think they have support from the White House and carte blanche.
I just don’t get why they would want to – even if they could get away with it? Can you imagine a wealthy woman having an under-age boy served up? I guess you have to be male to understand. But, to be fair, GM participated in the abuse of Virginia.
I think something sort of the same about post-presidency Bill Clinton- wouldn’t he have had secret service agents around 24/7 too? How was this kept secret?
My guess is NDAs and a culture of protecting the powerful.
I’m a mandated reported – it’s a requirement of my job in education – so if I even suspect a student is being abused, **I** am at legal risk if I don’t report it. (This is required for the K-12 school district where I volunteer, AND the college university where I am employed, so it’s not like this requirement only applies to protecting minors – my college students are all legal adults).
Given how many people in power abuse women and marginalized folks, I’m starting to think maybe anyone who works in government needs to be a mandated reporter, so when they cover up the crimes of others – even by simply looking the other way – they are legally and financially at risk themselves.
And NDAs should not be allowed to cover criminal behavior.
The Epstein files suggest just how many powerful people of all stripes were (and likely still are) involved in rape, pedophilia, and sex trafficking.
This might be one of the only ways to root that disgusting abuse of the powerful out.
All I can think about is, how many girls and women go through abuse like this, and never tell anyone? Never get the help they need?
Virginia writes that there were non-English-speaking girls being trafficked by Epstein too. They would have had even fewer resources to get themselves free of him and his ilk.
It is a horrific story. Sadly there are so many many many more ….
It’s so horrifying especially when you think of all the victims – the majority of whom I’m assuming have similar backgrounds to Virginia’s, which made them easy targets for Maxwell and Epstein. Her story is not an isolated one (although I get the impression she was with them for a longer period than a lot of the victims and was one of Epstein’s “favorites” – as gross as that is to say.)
Something I’m finding particularly horrifying: I’m thinking back to the excerpt we saw yesterday, where Virginia wrote about the orgies with the young girls who couldn’t speak English and how Epstein “joked” that they were his favorites because they couldn’t communicate properly. Knowing that these vile men were given free rein to be as violent as they pleased with Virginia, what were they allowed to do to those even more vulnerable girls?
That’s why some folks welcome back the perverse, ugly, morally and emotionally stunted Tate brothers back into the country was if they were worthy of laurels.
I wish she had a file somewhere naming names – or another version of her book – in case something happened to her.
I don’t think I’ll be reading this. As someone who was molested as a kid, this hits too close to home.
Krista, I am so sorry you were hurt as a child. Sending strength and admiration your way, just in case you ever need either.
I bet it’s Tony Blair. “Former prime minister” doesn’t he wasn’t in office in 2001.
He was prime minister from 1997-2007, so unlikely. Epstein and Maxwell were in deep with the Israelis, I would believe it’s the Israeli prime minister.
Tony Blair’s name has shown up many times in old articles about Epstein. Vanity Fair, NYT, etc have written many articles about Epstein since his first arrest in 2006. Blair is mentioned, and yes, that was the period. Of course it could also be Ehud Barak, or both. Both names have been connected to Epstein.
“Former prime minister” doesn’t imply he wasn’t in office in 2001–was supposed to be the sentence.
That’s how I read that sentence too – he wasn’t prime minister when V. was writing the book; he may or may not have been at the time he raped and beat her.
I was wondering the same thing. Who was the “former prime minister” and what was the timeline? What country was this man a former prime minister of?
Her father and any other family member who knew what he was doing and helped him should be in prison.
I guessed Tony Blair and that “former prime minister” just meant not PM at time of writing. Wasn’t there a story about Blair staying at Epstein’s New Mexico ranch?
I have been looking around the internet and I think Burak was close to him so it’s likely him. According to newly released records, Blair was introduced to Epstein in 2002 by Peter Mandelson, who lobbied for him to meet Blair while he was still prime minister.
I doubt it’s Tony Blair. He is not the sort of man to have inflicted the extreme violence on a woman that Virginia writes about. This is in the realm of the Tate Brothers and their ilk. Peter Mandelson, a government minister during Tony Blair’s premiership and a close ally, was indeed very friendly with Epstein and you will know how close they were if you have seen the infamous Birthday Book. However, Mandelson has no interest in women. He is openly gay. I think it’s much more likely to have been the former Israeli PM given the Israeli connections of both Epstein and Maxwell (both Ghislaine and her father). Failing that, it could be anybody, but certainly not Tony Blair.
The destruction of that life by power and perversion is too heartbreaking to witness, much less bear. Those same forces, power and perversion, are unfettered in the US right now.
Virginia Giuffre was strong, determined, and deserving of justice. Justice would have been these atrocities never being a part of her life therefore she was denied that in her lifetime. However the world owes her accountability, and I hope we can get it for her. #freethefiles.
Her father groomed her and Maxwell plucked her.
Are we sure “former” Prime Minister means former at the time the rape occurred?
It could’ve been someone who became “former” by the time she wrote about it.
That was the point I was trying to make above.
Gordon Brown! Just kidding.
Gordon Brown? LOL! I don’t think so! When I consider British PMs of the last 30 years or so they are all so boring and dull, including the current one. Boris Johnson is the only one who might fit the bill though but it wasn’t his era. 😏
I bet it was Tony Blair
Nah.
I find this whole thing so confusing (admittedly, I need to re-read some of the contemporary news reports), but…she had that “bus accident” and was told she had only two weeks to live, and THEN she committed suicide? When she said, essentially, “If I commit suicide, I would never have done that”? And do people have accidents where doctors say you only have a few weeks to live? I can see it if it’s “we’re fighting to save her, but it’s day-by-day,” but the “two weeks” thing always seemed very odd to me. And why would you commit suicide just before those two weeks were up, unless you were in incapacitating pain? It just doesn’t make sense.
None of it makes sense. When I saw the picture of her looking quite sick and saying she only had 2 weeks to live, then the press insinuating that it wasn’t true, then we hear about her suicide, something doesn’t seem right. Also, suddenly we hear her husband is abusive and she couldn’t see her children. I think Australia did a poor job of investigating this “accident”. “Car accidents” are a common way to get rid of people by dictators.
I honestly think the horrific facial injuries, photos of which appeared in the press, were not caused by an accident with a bus but due to domestic violence by her estranged husband. Witnesses to the reported bus accident have said that nobody was seriously hurt.
This poor woman. How she survived as long as she did I don’t know.
Ghislane Maxwell will be pardoned. I have no doubt of it. She has plenty of money and silence to buy a pardon. Unless if she kills herself first, that is. Like Epstein and the other criminal. Not that it matters since money talks but it would be easier to get to her in her current prison.
I hope all these disgusting old men get what’s coming to them.
Maybe not, if the files are released.
If the EPSfiles are released she may actually save the US. The powerful are trying to do to the country what was done to her.
That she chose to live as long as she did is testament to her endurance. Born into sexually abusive misogyny any died married to the same, and throughout her life exploited and abused by the same.
Let the cf#@kers be known.
That poor, courageous woman.
Times like these when I wish there were the real-life equivalent of avenging women superheroes who would just strike down the men who participated in this torture.
Poor dear girl was probably proud of her memoir, but also dreading its release and the interviews she’d be expected to do to promote it.
Rest in Peace.
I could believe it was Barak. If she was afraid to name him it’s because he’s alive. That discounts a lot of former PMs. And Barak is known to have been involved with Epstein.
I’ve always thought her little face was just haunting. And haunted.
In the early reporting after Epstein’s final arrest, someone at the NYT reported on an apartment building near Epstein’s brownstone where women were housed.
That report said Ehud Barak was frequently observed entering that building.
Plus, how many girls died? No one asks that.
💔 🤬
I am going to punt and say T0ny Bl@ir simply because he was so close to Mendelson, who has since been relieved of his current position in the UK cabinet for being close to Epstein.
The BBC are also doing a very calculated campaign of assassination of Blair at the moment, which tells me they know something else but cannot speak on it till proven, so they’re doing the old death by a thousand cuts to monster him in other ways.
Tony also famously had a relationship with Wendy Deng precipitating her divorce with Murdoch. So if things do go south for him, Murdoch will rejoice and print the gory details.