Epstein Affair was easily the greatest story of 2025 — so good you couldn’t make it up
Some stories are just humdrum. “There’s your top for Page 17,” the copytaster will say, tossing it dismissively into the night editor’s in-tray.
Others quicken the pulse, trigger a Fleet Street stampede and lodge for ever in the memory.
A natural disaster such as the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 227,000 people in 14 countries is such a story; or a plane crash like Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded in mid-air, victim of a terrorist bomb, and came down on the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 on board and 11 people on the ground.
Spectacular or troubling crimes can have this effect too. Think back to the Great Train Robbery or the Brink’s-Mat heist or the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
And then there is the third category – dynamite stories as rare and jaw-dropping as pink diamonds. So big that they are almost unbelievable.
As the lurid details unfold, they become mesmeric, impossible to look away from, shocking in their implications.
I am talking about the Jeffrey Epstein affair. This, for me, was the story of 2025 and promises to be the story of 2026 too.
It has everything: sex, power, money, blackmail, presidents, a prince, a peer of the realm, a Rothschild, bankers, politicians and giants of showbusiness and academia.
All lured into the orbit of a sleazy finance guru who surrounded himself with under-age girls procured by a beautiful socialite who is the daughter of the Fleet Street ogre Robert Maxwell.
No novelist would dare to make this story up. “Don’t be ridiculous,” his publisher would say when he pitched the idea.
Epstein was a charming huckster and a networker par excellence. Few had a better contacts book, perhaps not even the legendary U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger or Britain’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
He died aged 66 in August 2019 in a Manhattan prison cell. The New York medical examiner ruled that he hanged himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. At the time, he was worth more than half a billion dollars.
In a story full of doubt and denial, even his suicide is questionable. Some say, or at least imply, that he was murdered. He had many friends but also significant enemies.
Claims abound that he would record his high-profile guests having sex with trafficked under-age girls. No proof has yet emerged but no one would put it past him. He was utterly amoral, greedy, corrupt and ruthless.
How Epstein acquired his vast wealth is also mysterious. He was a maths wizard who quit university to teach maths and physics at Dalton School, a private, co-educational school in Manhattan.
He became known for inappropriate behaviour towards girl students, flirting and even turning up at a party where kids were drinking. He was eventually fired for “poor performance”.
But by then Epstein had met Alan Greenberg, chief executive officer of Bear Stearns, the American investment bank that collapsed in the 2008 financial crisis. Greenberg had a daughter at the school and Epstein persuaded someone to put a word in for him.
Greenberg took him on as an assistant to a floor trader and he showed such aptitude that he soon became an options trader and then an adviser to some of the bank’s wealthiest clients.
In 1981, he was asked to leave for breaking government financial rules. He struck out on his own, founding a firm that helped clients to recover money embezzled from them. It was, said Epstein, like working as a “high-level bounty hunter”.
During this period, there were claims that Epstein had been recruited by British intelligence and that he knew newspaper mogul Robert Maxwell, allegedly a long-time spy for Israel’s Mossad.
But two billionaires are largely responsible for Epstein’s fortune. The first is Les Wexner, boss of the American lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret. Epstein sorted out his scrambled finances and then managed his wealth.
He also became a talent scout for Victoria’s Secret and exploited that role to wield power over beautiful young women.
What is more, he discovered a highly lucrative tax dodge: he moved his companies to the U.S. Virgin Islands, so reducing his federal taxes by 90 per cent. Not only were the islands an offshore tax haven, but they even used the U.S. banking system.
The other man who helped Epstein to build his fortune was Leon Black, a private equity investor. He and Wexner between them paid Epstein $370 million in fees. Black stood down from the private equity firm he founded after sexual misconduct allegations.
Epstein owned many properties, including a $56 million, 28,000 square foot Manhattan town house which belonged to Wexner until he transferred the deeds to Epstein in 2011. He also owned two islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Great Saint James and Little Saint James.
It was in Little Saint James and the colossal Manhattan mansion that Epstein, a fan of the 1955 novel Lolita by Russian-American Vladimir Nabokov, conducted much of his paedophile activity.
Among the “friends” who visited Epstein at these locations were Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. Trump denies any wrongdoing in his relationship with Epstein, as the BBC tells us repeatedly every time it covers the story (which might have something to do with the fact that he is suing the corporation).
He and his wife Melania both deny scandalous rumours that continue to swirl on the internet that the First Lady was trafficked by Epstein and that Trump met her at one of Epstein’s properties.
As for Clinton, he too denies any guilty behaviour in his friendship with Epstein. He is, however, pictured soaking in a hot tub with Ghislaine Maxwell and an unidentified woman whose image is redacted.
Clinton has form for sexual shenanigans. And we have, of course, heard denials from him before – “I never had sexual relations with that woman.” He meant Monica Lewinsky and he was lying.
Maxwell, 64, is serving 20 years in a U.S. jail for sexually exploiting and abusing many underage girls with Epstein.
Others hosted by Epstein include Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, film-maker Woody Allen and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the King’s brother formerly known as Prince Andrew. His gilded life has been destroyed by his association with Epstein.
It is right that we do not imply guilt by association. There is no evidence of wrong-doing by any of the famous names reluctantly linked to Epstein. However, does anyone really believe that none of them noticed what was going on at his palatial properties?
Despite the high profile figures and the enormity of Epstein’s crimes, no criminal investigations are taking place either in the U.S. or Britain.
But I sense that, if the story can free itself from the quagmire of politics and legality, it may be far from over.
*****
As I write, the fifth Ashes Test is edging towards a conclusion… but so what? It is a dead rubber. England lost the first three Tests in just 11 days. All they could do after that is save a little face.
So, what have we learnt from this series? Well, for a start, we know that the Aussies were there for the taking. They have bowled well but their batting has been poor, just not as poor as England’s.
It is also apparent that no one knows how to play Test cricket any more. It’s chess, boys, not draughts. It’s Texas Hold ’em, not three-card brag.
Two of the first four Tests were over in two days, partly the fault of naïve and reckless batting but also of poorly-prepared pitches. That is devastating for the organisers and another nail in the coffin of Test cricket.
The public still has an appetite for this type of cricket. A record-breaking attendance of 94,199 on the opening day of the fourth Test in Melbourne proves it. But the players seem less enthusiastic; this was one of the matches that failed to last into a third day.
What else has the series taught us? We now know that Marnus Labuschagne (top score in the series so far 65, average 27.75) is all mouth and trousers; that Steve Smith, the oddest and most irritating man in sport, is mostly a spent force. And that all-rounder Cameron Green may not be the £2 million Man that the IPL thinks he is.
Ollie Pope will probably never play for England again. Harry Brook has begun to believe his own publicity. When Jamie Smith is not making runs, you’re left with a pretty ordinary wicket-keeper. England’s fast bowlers are not fit enough and break down too easily. England head coach Brendon McCullum, a laid-back Kiwi, may lose his Test role and have to concentrate on the short form, where his Bazball mindset belongs.
Apart from that, what a series it has been! No? Oh, well, please yourselves.
*****
We came to a big decision this year. Never again will we cook the traditional Christmas lunch. Turkey? Stuff it. And don’t get me started on sprouts.
The truth is we have never really liked most of the components of a Christmas lunch, apart perhaps from roast potatoes.
Turkey can be dry and tastes of cardboard and even an average bird has so much meat that you are sick of it by the day after Boxing Day.
And the faff! There isn’t enough room on the stove and in the oven for the bird and all the so-called trimmings.
Christmas, with its myths and traditions – most of which were invented by the Victorians – is mostly for children and shopkeepers.
Our children have long ago flown the nest. They do reappear at Christmas time but from next year, they will have to embrace change.
If we feel like a rich lamb stew for Christmas lunch, or a grilled sea bass, then that’s what we’ll be serving.
However, everyone enjoys a little indulgence at Christmas and I do like that Italian Christmas cake, panettone. We’ll keep that on the menu.
*****
Of all the sinister creeps Donald Trump has surrounded himself with, Pete Hegseth is the most odious.
Hegseth, 45, a former Fox News TV presenter, wears the permanent scowl of an angry and dissatisfied man. It turns out he is also malicious and vengeful.
Trump’s Secretary of Defence on Monday moved to demote Mark Kelly, a retired navy captain and NASA astronaut, and so reduce his pension.
Kelly is a Democratic Senator and political enemy of Trump. He said in a video: “Our law is clear: You can refuse illegal orders.”
He was probably referring to U.S. strikes on boats in the Caribbean, which Trump’s team has claimed were smuggling drugs to America.
In particular, one strike failed to kill all those on board, so a second strike was ordered – an illegal act under the Pentagon’s own Law of War Manual.
Hegseth, who has a politics degree from Princeton, writing on X, called it “a reckless and seditious video that was clearly intended to undermine good order and military discipline.”
Kelly spoke the truth and incensed Trump. Hegseth, the President’s handmaiden, needed no urging; he is taking his petty revenge.
The more I see of America, albeit from afar, the more I dislike it.
*****
Nicolas Maduro is a ruthless dictator who has stolen Venezuela’s wealth and brought his country to its knees. Donald Trump is a vile man who has raped the United States Constitution and brazenly seeks to profit from the presidency. Every story needs a hero. This one has none.
*****
A new phrase has emerged from the capture of Maduro by U.S. special forces. In our house, we talk about the “walk of shame” when I take the empties out to the recycling bin. In America, they talk of Maduro taking the “perp’s walk”, hooded and shackled and surrounded by Drug Enforcement Agency guards.
RICHARD DISMORE
7 January 2026
