Epstein survivor Anouska De Georgiou recalls how she felt when convicted sex offender died

Warning: This article contains discussion of sexual assault which some readers may find distressing.

A former model who used to live just a mile away from Ghislaine Maxwell’s home has recounted how it felt to discover that her abuser, Jeffrey Epstein, had died.

When Anouska De Georgiou was just 16, she met Maxwell, now 60, and Epstein, who died at the age of 66, for the first time, after connecting with Maxwell through mutual friends in a Paris hotel lobby. Decades later, she became the first Brit to come forward with abuse allegations.

"Her charisma was infectious," De Georgiou recalled in an interview for LADbible’s Minutes With series. "At the time, I had no idea that anything was being leveraged."

Maxwell, whom De Georgiou says she would see ‘more often’ than Epstein, was put behind bars for 20 years in June 2022 after being found guilty of sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.

Anouska De Georgiou was 16 when she first met Maxwell and Epstein (LADbible Stories)

Epstein, whose historic messages about Microsoft founder Bill Gates were recently released, was awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre (MCC) in New York City when he was found dead in his cell on August 10 2019.

Medical examiners later ruled that the disgraced financier had died by suicide.

'Unimaginable abuse'

De Georgiou, who survived ‘unimaginable abuse’ for several years at the hands of the pair, recounted how she wanted to be ‘helpful’ to the late Virginia Giuffre after she filed a defamation lawsuit against Maxwell in 2015.

She also said that she ‘loved’ the Nobody’s Girl author in a ‘trauma bonding way’. “You feel this natural draw to somebody because you've experienced things that are so similar that nobody else could understand,” she explained.

But after allegedly being put on a witness list for Giuffre’s case, De Georgiou said she received a phone call from a stranger in the middle of the night telling her to ‘stay out’ of the court case.

This led her to call her attorney and tell him that she could no longer be ‘involved'.

'I knew that I would never have come forward publicly if he had still been alive'

After following the case online, the mother of one recalled that the next ‘big event’ that happened was that Epstein had died.

“I remember where I was when Epstein died, when I found out that he was dead.

De Georgiou spoke at the US Capitol last year (Roberto SCHMIDT / AFP via Getty Images)

"And many of the other survivors have talked about anger that he wouldn't be held accountable in his life. I was relieved, I was so relieved because I knew he couldn't hurt anyone," she said. “And I knew that I would never have come forward publicly if he had still been alive, ever. I was too scared.”

She continued: "It had been made clear to me on many occasions that, you know, on one occasion in Palm Beach, Jeffrey turned to me in front of this other man and said, 'You see, Anouska, if you know the right people and you have enough money, you can do anything you want. And there are no consequences.'

“And I believed that totally. And I believed that they would kill me,” the Brit added.

De Georgiou also explained how coming forward with her allegations caused a negative backlash from people in high society.

She said: “I had people from this peer group in England, people who had known Ghislaine, people who I thought were my friends.

Watch De Georgiou's full Minutes With episode here:

"And they messaged me, and they said, "Oh, ha, ha, ha, you're famous. Are you pleased?" And... No, I'm not pleased. I'm not pleased at all. I'm devastated and humiliated and embarrassed, and deeply sad and frightened. And I want to hide, and I want to take it back and put it back in and go back to never telling anyone.”

'I will not be intimidated'

Now, De Georgiou says she will 'not be silenced'.

"I'm almost 50 years old, and I know how to be afraid and to do the right thing anyway. I will not be quiet. I will not be silenced. I will not be intimidated. And I am saying that for my daughter, for other people's daughters, for Carolyn [Andriano], for Virginia, for all the others who didn't make it, that we don't hear about. And for myself."

If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org

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