Carole Radziwill ‘grilled’ on Epstein files, Ghislaine Maxwell friendship on ‘RHONY’
Carole Radziwill was put in the hot seat over her ties to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell during Tuesday’s “Real Housewives of New York City” episode.
As the Bravolebrity and her castmates enjoyed a trip to Erika Hammond’s private island, she admitted, “If you Google me right now, it says that my name is in the Epstein files.”
She insisted to co-stars Daisy Toye and Hailey Glassman that she “never knew Jeffrey Epstein” — and that Maxwell, 64, “never spoke about him.”
When Jessel Taank and Sai De Silva joined the chat, Radziwill denied the latter’s assumption that she was “really good friends” with Maxwell, who has been convicted of child sex trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Epstein, for his part, died in 2019 while in federal prison awaiting trial.
Noting that people who “read the press” would think she and Maxwell had a strong bond, Radziwill clarified, “She was never one of my close friends.”
The scene cut to a confessional, with the journalist doubling down that Maxwell “never talked” about Epstein — and that she and the former socialite were just “friendly.”
Radziwill claimed, “In the early 2000s, it would be strange if you [went] out to a really big event in New York and Ghislaine wasn’t there.”
Continuing to answer her co-stars’ questions, Radziwill called Maxwell a “social climber” and said they “drifted apart” since their connection “wasn’t that deep.”
She added, “If you lined up 10 women and said, ‘Which one was part of an international sex trafficking ring?’ It would not be her.”
As De Silva’s queries persisted, Radziwill asked, “How do I know you don’t know a predator? … Maybe you just don’t know it yet. That’s my point. This is a story as old as time.”
She went on to share her own story of being sexually assaulted by a professor in college while emphasizing that Epstein “got what he deserved.”
“Believe me, this professor was celebrated,” she recalled. “This professor had lots of friends who didn’t know that he was assaulting young students. It does shake me to think that I knew someone and would even, like, call her a friend, who then 20 years later, turned out to be a monster.”
In another confessional, Radziwill railed against the “fine line between [her castmates’] curiosity and accusation” as they “grill[ed] her with questions.”
She said, “This is not what [they] should be talking about,” instead bringing up “why, under two administrations, the Department of Justice [and] the FBI never investigated any of the men.”
Toye agreed in a confessional of her own, saying, “Poor Carole that she has to bring up such a disgusting, painful time in her life, just to justify herself to Sai.”
Acknowledging that De Silva “is very blunt,” the makeup artist continued, “Nobody should be treated like this. I didn’t know we had a f–king federal prosecutor on this trip.”
Radziwill elaborated on Tuesday’s episode in a Substack essay that same day, describing how “taken aback” she felt by De Silva “pressing” her.
“At some point, insinuation stops being concern or desire for clarity and becomes something else entirely. Something much less noble,” she wrote. “Yet this is the ecosystem we’re living in now where conspiracy is currency [and] facts are optional.”
Radziwill stated, “I don’t need to defend my reputation. No serious person believes I was, in any way, involved in a criminal sex-trafficking ring.”
Last month, it was Taank, 46, who made headlines for bombarding Radziwill with questions about her late friend Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, whose live and death were fictionalized on Ryan Murphy’s “Love Story” series in February.
“It doesn’t register to her? That the tragic deaths of my cousins and best friend might be very upsetting to me?” Radziwill said in September. “I want to strangle her.”
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-330-0226.