Victoria’s Secret Epstein Affair

les wexner
Shy and at times reclusive, Wexner was an unusual fit with the charming, handsome partier Epstein. Photo: Stephen Lovekin/WWD/Penske Media/Getty Images
Lauren Sherman
October 10, 2024

Les Wexner met Jeffrey Epstein in the mid-1980s. Back then, Wexner was a newly minted billionaire, still living in Columbus after adding Victoria’s Secret to his growing retail empire, Limited Brands, but spending more of his time in New York City. He’d recently bought the department store Henri Bendel and was making inroads with the city’s high-society crowd. But he was far from a social butterfly. If he appeared in the pages of Women’s Wear Daily, it was because of a development in his business. He rarely graced the pages of the paper’s “Eye” section, which documented the city’s latest fetes. Wexner needed an entrée into society, someone to connect him with the right people and protect him from the wrong ones.