Part 1 of The Pipeline to Predators, a four-part Ms. investigation into the modeling industry’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein and survivors’ fight for accountability.
Jeffrey Epstein “used the modeling industry as a lever to try to get girls into his orbit,” Lisa Phillips tells Ms.
An Epstein survivor, Phillips met him in 2000 through an Eastern European model, who brought her to Little St. James, Epstein’s private island in the Virgin Islands, where he first assaulted her. The other model had obtained her U.S. visa through Epstein—the significance of which Phillips didn’t fully grasp until later.
Phillips describes how Epstein operated: He asked about her career, about how often she talked to her father (she told him not often), and he specifically wanted to know about her goals as a model. She told him her “big dream” was to work for Ford Models. He told her that she and the other model had to stay over on the island, then assaulted her later that night.
When Phillips got home, she claims Epstein’s assistant repeatedly pressed her to meet with him again. She refused. Months later, she says, he called to say he had arranged a meeting with his “great friend” Katie Ford, the CEO of Ford Models. Phillips met with Ford and became a model for the agency.
“He gave me the exact thing I wanted: my big, huge goal,” Phillips says. “It was a huge deal, and was wonderful, and should’ve stopped there, but it didn’t.”
She says Epstein continued to summon her to his home, where he continued to assault her, and he arranged meetings with other powerful men, some of whom she claims also assaulted her.
According to Phillips, the Ford agency itself enlisted models to attend events that were also attended by powerful men.
“Models were being sent to every charity event, every modeling party,” she says, “everything organized through Katie Ford and agents.”
She alleges these events sometimes led to assaults, and that models were also assaulted on the job, while working on photo shoots.
“It was always us younger girls and older men,” she explains. “We [felt] our bodies weren’t ours and we would just have to put up with it to keep [our] career.”
Katie Ford has not issued a public response addressing allegations linking her and Ford Models to Epstein’s network.
Looking back, Phillips says she does not blame the model who brought her to Epstein: “She did what she had to do for Jeffrey, and to stay safe. That is how it worked.”
The former models who spoke with Ms. say that industry-connected abusers—including Epstein—and their enablers often used the women’s desire to launch or advance their modeling careers to groom and manipulate them.
Lara Blume McGee, an Epstein survivor who came forward publicly for the first time at a press conference on Capitol Hill in November 2025, shares how Epstein used her dreams of becoming a Victoria’s Secret model, and his close relationship with Les Wexner—then the owner of Victoria’s Secret—to groom, manipulate and abuse her.
Ghislaine Maxwell befriended Blume McGee at a Fashion Week event, gaining her trust before eventually introducing her to Epstein, who, according to Maxwell, knew Victoria’s Secret’s owner and could help her career.
Blume McGee recalls, “Victoria’s Secret … for me, it was almost like a prayer that was answered, because that in the modeling industry, literally, that’s all I really wanted to do. It didn’t matter who else I worked for—I just wanted to model for Victoria’s Secret.”
Shortly after they met, Epstein invited her to his house. He used her ambitions to get her into his massage room, where she alleges he sexually abused and raped her. According to Blume McGee, a few days later, Epstein called her excitedly and told her he had shown a “tape” of them together to Wexner, who, Epstein claimed, had expressed interest in working with her. Hearing from Epstein that Wexner had a tape of her assault, she recalls, felt like “my dreams were being torn apart.”
Blume McGee says Epstein told her that he lived in Wexner’s New York house and had control over all his money. Epstein had cameras throughout the house, according to Blume McGee, and she remembers him boasting about his close relationships with other powerful men.
“I can get these guys to do anything,” she recalls him saying. “I control them.”
Blume McGee tells Ms., “There [were] a couple parties I attended at [Epstein’s] home, gatherings with lots of people there … you know, powerful men in the room. [Donald] Trump was at a couple of them, that’s the only person I knew, because he was Trump. … Trump gave me his phone number, and I never called him.”
Demoralized, Blume McGee eventually gave up the dream. She says Epstein used his claimed Wexner connection and threats to release the tape to control and assault her for two and a half years, but that he never actually introduced her to Wexner.
Wexner has denied knowing of Epstein’s criminal conduct, saying in a 2026 statement that Epstein had conned him and that he (Wexner) had “done nothing wrong.”
Phillips and Blume McGee’s accounts raise questions that reach beyond Epstein: Who helped bring young models into his orbit, and how many others were placed in harm’s way?
Part 2 of this four-part Ms. investigation—”Modeling Agencies, Powerful Men and the Network Around Epstein”—is available Monday.
This article is excerpted from a larger feature in the Fall 2026 issue of Ms., hitting newsstands soon. Become a Ms. member and get print issues delivered right to your mailbox.
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