Hollywood publicist admits knowing Jeffrey Epstein was ‘morally compromised’

Hollywood energy dealer Peggy Siegal noticed her profession unravel after her ties to Jeffrey Epstein got here beneath scrutiny following the financier’s 2019 arrest on sex trafficking charges.

Roughly 5,000 emails between Siegal and Epstein despatched between 2009 and 2019 had been launched by the Department of Justice earlier this yr. The correspondence between Siegal – who represented shoppers resembling Steven Spielberg, Harvey Weinstein and Barry Levinson – shed new mild on the pair’s seemingly symbiotic relationship.

Siegal opened up about what she gained from her affiliation with Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 whereas awaiting trial, in a latest interview with New York Magazine.

The revelations provide a more in-depth have a look at the Hollywood publicist’s function in Epstein’s social orbit and the fallout that adopted.

HOLLYWOOD EXECS LOSE DEALS, CLIENTS FLEE AS ​​EPSTEIN FILES TRIGGER FALLOUT IN THE INDUSTRY

Epstein gifted Hollywood energy dealer $100,000

Jeffrey Epstein gifted Peggy Siegal $100,000 for her seventieth birthday in 2017, roughly two years earlier than the financier was arrested on expenses of intercourse trafficking minors. “I had no problem taking his money,” she informed New York Magazine. “He had lots of it.”

Siegal laid out her plans on how she was hoping to spend the cash in an electronic mail to Epstein. $30,000 was put aside for a birthday celebration she wished to host in Southampton with 70 company. Another $15,000 was to be donated to Elton John’s AIDS Foundation so she may “attend a party at his house in June.”

Siegal additionally revealed she’d use a few of the enormous sum to complement her house renovation as she was on the lookout for a short lived repair whereas she waited for “an amazing brown and beige leopard rug that is wall to wall carpeting for my whole apartment and being made in France.”

“When the apartment gets done, you’re my first visitor,” she wrote on the time.

Helped Epstein regain entry to elite social circles

While Peggy Siegal claimed she by no means went to Jeffrey Epstein’s island or traveled on his airplane, the Hollywood publicist helped the disgraced millionaire regain entry to elite social circles following his time behind bars within the 2000s.

According to New York Magazine, Siegal obtained Epstein invited to the 2013 Met Gala and helped him acquire entry to dinners alongside A-list names resembling Martha StewartLorne Michaels and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

She additionally routinely added him to screening lists and sometimes introduced him herself.

A detailed affiliate of Siegal’s claimed the publicist turned “the lynchpin” for Epstein’s social life.

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Peggy Siegal emailed with Jeffrey Epstein from 2009 by 2019. (Billy Farrell/Patrick McMullan through Getty Images)

Planned Epstein A-list celebration with former Prince Andrew

Peggy Siegal helped Jeffrey Epstein plan a celebration crammed with A-list company and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor because the visitor of honor. According to emails, Epstein was desperate to befriend Woody Allen and steered Siegal invite the director to his celebration.

“Woody is a great idea. Do you know Woody? I do,” she wrote again. The publicist appeared to think about the chance it may create a fallout. “Could there be any resistance because he had a public issue with Soon-Yi? … just thinking ahead.”

She steered inviting artwork seller and Allen’s shut pal Lorinda Ash, writing, “He may feel better if people he knows are around [him]. On the other hand a royal may intrigue him.”

Siegal insisted to New York Magazine that the feast was a “total exception” and that she by no means hosted events for Epstein. She claimed she had solely agreed to this celebration to be able to get Harvey Weinstein’s movie “The King’s Speech” to former Prince Andrew and in entrance of Queen Elizabeth II.

“Harvey had been trying to get a quote from the queen,” she informed the outlet, noting she had been advertising the film on the time. “It was ridiculous.”

Looking again, Siegal claimed she “jeopardized” her relationships with “all these important people” by inviting them round Epstein. “They didn’t know who he was.”

“All of Jeffrey’s illegal, immoral behavior was in Palm Beach, and he went to jail in Palm Beach, and the New York Times never wrote about him. World-famous newscasters didn’t know who Jeffrey Epstein was. And they counted on my relationship with them to invite them to an interesting evening, which I had many, many times before. They came on my say-so.”

The New York Times did write about Epstein’s 2008 jail stint.

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Jeffrey Epstein died by obvious suicide in 2019. (Rick Friedman/Rick Friedman Photography/Corbis through Getty Images)

Epstein wished a ‘child mama’

Jeffrey Epstein’s emails to Hollywood publicist Peggy Siegal confirmed that he might have been excited by discovering a “baby mama.”

“You shmooze and find me a baby mama,” Epstein wrote in an electronic mail.

“A baby Mama… if I wasn’t 102 I would take that job in a nano second,” the publicist wrote again.

“I need great genes,” Epstein added. “smart pretty, funny if you were fifty years younger, whoops, forty.”

She responded, “I am thinking this is a position for a European who understands the mistress (in this case baby mama) mentality. You need someone young without much of a career. Maybe a professional student someone who is kept and can just keep going to school. Also, who doesn’t have much of a family herself. A wanna be socialite is NOT the way to go. Looking and looking. xoxo Peg.”

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Peggy Siegal attending the 2017 Vanity Fair Oscar Party on February 26, 2017. (Presley Ann Slack/Patrick McMullan through Getty Images)

Hollywood publicist was ‘in denial’ about Epstein

Peggy Siegal admitted she “wasn’t oblivious” to the truth that Jeffrey Epstein was “morally compromised” and a “con man.”

“I was in denial, but if I tell you that he told me he changed his ways, then that’s telling you I knew that he was a pervert,” she informed New York Magazine.

“I mean, obviously I had a sense that he had done something wrong if he had gone to jail,” Siegal added. “I wasn’t oblivious that he was morally compromised and a con man. But I don’t know how to say this to you: The idea of ​​child pornography is so heinous that you can’t even think about it. You can’t even discuss it. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s nothing I wanted to deal with.”