On Wednesday, court documents were unsealed (following a federal judge’s ruling in December) that included more than 100 names allegedly connected to the late Jeffrey Epstein. It’s a hefty read and features more than 900 pages of primarily unredacted documents.
Most of the names revealed aren’t accused of any wrongdoing, per say, and they’ve been previously reported though there have been numerous fake lists circulating on the internet. However, the real one does shockingly feature two prominent Black celebrities—and no it doesn’t include Oprah Winfrey or Whoopi Goldberg.
Additionally, the documents aren’t an actual list of associates but those who were expected to appear on the flight logs of Epstein’s private jet called the “Lolita Express.” The jet was frequently used to travel to his private island in the Caribbean.
The release of the names are a result of a settled defamation lawsuit brought in 2015 by Virginia Giuffre who alleged that convicted British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell helped Epstein abuse her (Epstein was accused of sexually assaulting numerous teenage girls before dying by suicide in 2019).
Epstein’s list contains the likes of Prince Andrew as well as Donald Trump, which is not surprising since they’ve had a public history of socializing with him. Bill Clinton and David Copperfield are some of the new names that have surfaced, along with Kevin Spacey, Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio.
The two Black celebs mentioned are Naomi Campbell and the late Michael Jackson. They were named in the testimony of Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg, who said she met Jackson at Epstein’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida. Sjoberg also claimed that she did not massage Jackson, as Epstein wanted her to do that for him.
In 2019, Campbell acknowledged meeting Epstein in 2001 and how the crimes he had been accused of were truly horrendous. “What he’s done is indefensible. And when I had heard what he had done, it sickened me to my stomach just like everybody else because I’ve had my fair share of sexual predators, and thank God I had people around me that protected me from this,” she said.
“Right now I stand with the victims. They’re scarred for life.” Attorney Alan Dershowitz—who has made his disdain for Claudine Gay very known—is Epstein’s former attorney and friend. He claims to be ignorant to the alleged behavior of the late financier by saying “None of us knew about his private life that he kept so secret.”