Victoria’s Secret’s troubling underbelly will be revealed in a new podcast about the brand.
The film “Fallen Angel” delves into the lingerie behemoth’s “very sinister ecosystem” and its disturbing ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the company’s founder, Les Wexner’s money guru.
“I think … Les Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship was deep,” Vanessa Grigoriadis, a journalist and the podcast’s co-host, told The Post. “And there are many people who believe that the bulk of Epstein’s money — the money that Epstein used to buy all these extraordinary properties and create an image for himself that attracted all these wealthy men to his side, and also abuse all of these women and girls — most likely came from Les Wexner.”
The two men were so close that they owned a $77 million Upper East Side townhouse together. Epstein’s Virgin Islands-based LLC received the deed in 2011.
Prosecutors in Manhattan accused Epstein of using his ties to Victoria’s Secret to have unsuspecting girls “audition” for him at his home. These would usually begin with massage requests and end with sexual abuse.
In 2019, while in federal custody, Epstein died in an apparent suicide. On charges of sex-trafficking dozens of teenage girls, the jet-setting financier, 66, faced up to 45 years in prison. Wexner later admitted that he had been “taken advantage of” and that his ties to Epstein had made him “embarrassed.”
The late disgraced money manager even owned a home on Wexner’s vast Ohio estate, according to Grigoriadis and co-host Justine Harman, the former features director at Glamour magazine.
“Being seen as one of the people with whom Les Wexner had confidence gave you an extraordinary amount of power there,” Harman said.
And it appears that Epstein had no qualms about wielding that power over Victoria’s Secret employees.
Cindy (who requested that her last name not be used in the podcast) recalls being seated next to Epstein at a birthday party for Wexner’s mother at a corporate cafeteria space and being invited by Epstein to an exclusive afterparty at Wexner’s house, according to the podcast.
“There was something that just didn’t seem right about it,” Cindy reveals. “I was, if you will, the hired help. And my boss [Wexner] is having an afterparty to which he didn’t invite me? … I don’t even know who this guy [Epstein] is, so I declined.”