How did Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious child predator and sex trafficker, amass his vast wealth? Yes, the late money manager rubbed shoulders with everyone from Bill Gates and Bill Clinton to Prince Andrew and Donald Trump, but as the new Hulu docuseries Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons (July 14) contends, one of the certified creep’s biggest money sources was none other than billionaire Les Wexner, the “Merlin of the Mall.”
Wexner, a slight man with elfin-like features (picture Ben Gazzara), was hardly a paragon of posh. Despite being the man behind retail behemoth L Brands—whose portfolio at one point included retailers The Limited, Abercrombie & Fitch, Express, Lane Bryant, Henri Bendel, Bath & Body Works, and Victoria’s Secret—Wexner maintained a relatively low profile in his native Ohio, far from the prying lenses of the paparazzi.
That all seemed to change around the time Epstein entered his life in the mid-1980s. The forty-something Wexner dyed his hair and upgraded his wardrobe. His soirees were now attended by Epstein’s roster of celebrity acquaintances. In 1985, Wexner graced the cover of New York magazine accompanied by the headline “The Bachelor Billionaire.” And in 1989, according to a piece in The Washington Post, a diary entry of Wexner’s dated Sept. 1, 1989, read: “I finally like myself.”
A few weeks before Epstein died in his prison cell while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, The New York Times published an…
