19 Things We Learned from Virginia Giuffre’s Memoir About Jeffrey Epstein
Virginia Giuffre’s memoir Nobody’s Girl is one of the most important books written about the Jeffrey Epstein case, and it is a powerful testament to a courageous woman who stood up to some of the most powerful men in the world.
It also forces you to understand how human trafficking actually works. It doesn’t look like the movies. There are no dramatic kidnappings or locked cages. As Giuffre writes: “There were no bars on the windows or locks on the doors. But I was a prisoner trapped in an invisible cage.” That invisible cage is built slowly, out of poverty, abuse, loneliness, and the basic human need to feel safe and wanted. Epstein and Maxwell were experts at finding girls who were already trapped in one and moving them into another.
Giuffre died by suicide in April 2025, weeks before this book reached the world. She spent the last years of her life making sure this story got told. The least we can do is read it.
Here are 19 things we learned from Nobody’s Girl.
1. Virginia grew up in a home where both her father and a family friend named Forrest sexually abused her as a young child. Her father threatened to kill her little brother and bury him in the woods if she ever told anyone. Forrest was later convicted in 2000 of abusing another girl in North Carolina and was a registered sex offender for ten years.
2. Before she ever met Jeffrey Epstein, Virginia had already been trafficked by another man. At 15, after being brutally raped by a stranger in a Miami motel room, she got into a limousine with a man named Ron Eppinger who told her he ran a modeling agency called Perfect 10. Federal prosecutors later proved it was a $1,000-a-night escort service. Eppinger was in his sixties. Virginia was 15.
3. Virginia’s mother tricked her into entering a youth treatment program called Growing Together by telling her they were going to the eye doctor. Once inside, staff forced the teenagers to stand in front of mirrors and yell things like “I am a whore, a slut, a druggie.” The facility was later exposed by a newspaper as a place where kids endured “beatings, restraint, imprisonment, and systematic humiliation.” It raked in roughly $1 million a year.
4. Ghislaine Maxwell recruited Virginia at Mar-a-Lago in 1999, when Virginia was working as a locker room attendant at the spa. Maxwell told her she could be trained as a massage therapist by a wealthy friend. Virginia was 16. Epstein was 46.
5. Epstein had a secret “trophy closet” hidden behind a wall panel in his Palm Beach home. He showed it to Virginia himself. Hundreds of photos of naked girls, many visibly underage, covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Shoeboxes in the corner held the overflow. He had run out of display space.
6. Maxwell kept detailed manuals at each of Epstein’s homes specifying house rules down to the smallest details. This included coffee preferences (Maxwell House), thermostat settings (60 degrees in bedrooms, 88 in the pool), and the toilet paper (the end of each roll was to be folded into a “V”). Maxwell was Epstein’s enforcer across every aspect of his domestic life.
7. Epstein boasted to Virginia that he had sex with over 1,000 girls supplied by modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel. On one occasion, Epstein told her, Brunel sent him three French 12-year-old girls, reportedly triplets, as a birthday gift. Epstein had sex with them and put them on a plane back to France. On another occasion, Brunel sent scouts to Brazil on Epstein’s jet to recruit underage girls from soccer fields. Brunel was later arrested in France on charges of rape and human trafficking of minors and died in custody in 2022.
8. Epstein’s homes were wired with cameras in every room. In the Manhattan townhouse, Epstein personally showed Virginia the room where he monitored and recorded the camera feeds. Virginia writes that she believes he used this footage to gather leverage over powerful men. Another victim, Lisa Phillips, has stated she once asked Epstein why he encouraged a friend to have sex with Prince Andrew. His response: “It’s good to have things on people.”
9. Virginia says she was trafficked to Prince Andrew three times. First in London at 17, after Maxwell told her she was expected to do “for him what you do for Jeffrey,” and Epstein later paid her $15,000; second at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, where Maxwell staged photos with a “Prince Andrew” puppet before sending her to a bedroom with him; third on Epstein’s island, which she describes as a group sex encounter involving about eight other girls who appeared underage and spoke no English. She also points to flight logs showing Andrew flew on Epstein’s plane from St. Thomas on July 4, 2001.
10. For Epstein’s 48th birthday, Maxwell told Virginia the only gift he wanted was naked photos of her. Maxwell took her to the patio by the pool and posed her carefully, arranging her hair, placing her in compromising positions.
11. Epstein had former president Bill Clinton over for dinner at his Manhattan townhouse, and Virginia was at the table. He also hosted Al and Tipper Gore. Epstein displayed framed photographs of himself with the Dalai Lama, the pope, and members of the British royal family throughout his home. A photo showed him posing behind the podium of the White House briefing room.
12. Virginia writes that recruiting other girls for Epstein is the worst thing she has ever done in her life. She was trained by Maxwell and another woman to approach girls at 3 p.m. when high schools let out, to identify those who were most vulnerable. Girls were paid $200 for a first visit and told they could double their money by bringing a friend. Virginia eventually brought her own friends to be abused. She writes: “The faces of girls I recruited will always haunt me.”
13. Simpsons creator Matt Groening was a passenger on Epstein’s private jet on February 23, 2001, a date confirmed by flight logs later made public in court proceedings. Virginia was ordered to massage his feet. She writes she had no sexual contact with Groening. Groening drew two signed sketches for her at her request, one for her little brother and one for her father.
14. When Virginia collapsed in a pool of blood at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in July 2001, Epstein took her to New York-Presbyterian Hospital and lied to staff about her age, telling them her birthdate was in 1982 so she would appear to be 18. She was born in 1983. While she was being examined, Epstein intercepted her doctor and the two men spoke quietly in the doorway. Virginia writes that a “gentlemen’s agreement” appeared to have been reached. The doctors spoke to Epstein more than to her.
15. When investigators began closing in on Epstein in 2007, both Maxwell and Epstein called Virginia directly at her home in Australia, where she was eight months pregnant. Maxwell told her she would be “taken care of” if she refused to cooperate with investigators. Epstein called shortly after and told her his lawyer was recording the conversation. Virginia was afraid that if she expressed hostility they would harm her family.
16. The lead detective on the Palm Beach investigation, Joseph Recarey, prepared arrest warrants for Epstein, his assistant Sarah Kellen, and a recruiter named Haley Robson. Those warrants were effectively ignored. State prosecutors made a deal with Epstein behind closed doors without telling any of his victims. Epstein received 18 months in prison but was allowed out on “work release” up to 12 hours a day, six days a week, to visit an office where he continued to abuse girls. He served only 13 months total.
17. Virginia settled her civil lawsuit against Epstein in 2009 for $500,000, a number she chose by looking at average home prices in her neighborhood. She later learned at least one other victim received ten times that amount. “I didn’t want money,” she writes. “I wanted justice.” The settlement required both parties to keep the terms secret and prohibited Epstein from contacting her again.
18. The iconic photo of Virginia with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell exists because Virginia thought of her mom. When Prince Andrew arrived at Maxwell’s London townhouse, Virginia’s first instinct was that her mother would never forgive her for meeting someone that famous without getting a picture. She ran to her room, grabbed a Kodak FunSaver disposable camera, came back, and asked Epstein to take the shot.
19. Virginia died by suicide on April 26, 2025, at her remote farm in Australia. Days before she died, she sent an email to her collaborator and publicist requesting the book be published regardless of her circumstances. The email read in part: “The content of this book is crucial, as it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals across borders. It is imperative that the truth is understood.”
Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice is available now wherever books are sold. Find it on Amazon here.