Exposed: Photographic evidence that Jeffrey Epstein procured one of his victims to a previously unlinked A-List Celebrity
Almost six years after his death, the public is still clamoring for the names of more associates of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell - maybe even more so after Pam Bondi’s botched release of redacted documents back in January. Every Epstein-related comment section is flooded with the same demand: “show us the client list!” It’s a bit reductive, in my humble opinion, but they’ve got the spirit.
Well, I have been able to dig up definitive photographic evidence of one of Epstein’s known victims, Lisa Phillips, with an A-List celebrity who has never before been directly linked to Epstein, and as you’ll soon see there is a full story much more damning than just a simple photograph. If you just want the name & face then scroll on down but if you want the full account of how I put this story together and a more complete picture of everybody that is tarnished by these findings, then please read on.
First we have to talk about the French modeling scout Jean Luc Brunel, who was one of Epstein’s closest associates. Brunel used his established position in the fashion industry to procure and traffic young models. The late Virginia Roberts-Giuffre reported that Epstein told her that he had “slept with over a thousand women” that Brunel brought him. Brunel was arrested in France in December 2020, and would go on to die in jail from an apparent suicide under suspicious circumstances similar to Epstein’s.
Brunel has long been known to be a shady character. As far back as 1988, 60 Minutes Australia produced an investigative report called “American Girls in Paris”, which documented multiple allegations of Brunel’s sexual abuse towards American models in the French fashion industry. One of the interviewees in this report was Eileen Ford who was the founder and executive of Ford Models - one of the first and one of the largest modeling agencies in the world. She is questioned about the fact that she would regularly send models from her agency to Brunel in Paris. One of the victims in the report said that Brunel’s abuse was an open secret that many people in the industry knew about. Ford claimed, with the benefit of plausible deniability, that she had no idea about Brunel’s abuse. Ford reportedly then told Brunel that after this investigation she would no longer send him any more girls “unless this all gets cleared up.” A few years later in 1991, Eileen’s daughter Katie Ford - who would go on to take over the family business - told reporters that all ties had been severed with Brunel when “60 Minutes basically exposed him as a sleazeball”
However, Katie Ford would go on to be found in Epstein’s little black book. Her parent’s (Eileen & Jerry) contact information was also listed under Katie’s name. Her husband from 1985 to 2004, Andre Balazs, is also in the little black book.
Now merely appearing in Epstein’s black book isn’t necessarily incriminating on its own, but Katie Ford and Andre Balazs’ relationships to Epstein and Maxwell are verifiably deeper than contact information in a book.
Balazs can be seen with Maxwell in very intimate, chummy photographs spanning the 1990’s and 2000’s.
Balazs was reported to have “escorted” Maxwell around New York while Epstein was doing prison time in Florida.
In the infamous footage of Prince Andrew seeing a woman out of Epstein’s New York townhouse, that woman is Kathleen Keating who reportedly had just moved from Australia to New York due to her relationship with Balazs. Keating would go on to interview Maxwell in a video production about her bizarre and suspect ocean charity The TerraMar Project.
Maria Farmer, one of the most prominent Epstein victims and the first one to report him to the FBI, briefly yet passionately brought up Katie Ford and Andre Balazs in a conversation with Whitney Webb. Farmer talks about a time she walked into Epstein’s office when Ford & Balazs were in there, and Epstein & Maxwell started telling Maria Farmer that her sister Annie (another victim of Epstein) could get a modeling job through Katie Ford. Maria Farmer makes the allegation that a complicit Katie Ford is why Epstein & Maxwell were able to lure in girls under the guise of prospective modeling opportunities.
There is only one other confirmed Epstein survivor that I have found to make reference to Katie Ford, and that is Lisa Phillips. She has recounted her backstory with Epstein on multiple podcasts. Back in the early 2000’s while wrapping up a modeling job in the Virgin Islands, Phillips was invited by another model to a nearby private island for a day of fun on the beach. A 21 year old Phillips agreed and tagged along to Little Saint James. After a fun day on the beach with the girls, they went back to the house for dinner and met the owner of the island: a man named Jeffrey. Phillips had great conversations with Epstein about modeling and she was excited to have had the valuable networking experience with such a well connected man. Then after retiring to the bedroom for the night, she was summoned to give Epstein a reluctant massage, which led to his characteristic abuse.
The next day she was desperate to get off the island and never look back. She didn’t hear from Epstein again for four months, when he gave her a call and asked if it was still her dream to be a Ford model. She jumped at the opportunity and Epstein got her a meeting with Katie Ford. “I love Jeffrey!” Ford exclaimed, and signed Phillips on as a model. With a newfound hold on Phillips, Epstein was able to continue periodically abusing her through the underlying understanding that he could take away her dreams as swiftly as he had granted them.
During her appearance on the Strugglecare podcast, Phillips recounted a night where Epstein called her up and invited her to some fancy elite movie premiere party. At the party, an unnamed “A-list celebrity” had his sights on Phillips all night. Phillips told the story of the events that unfolded, but refused to name this celebrity due to an nondisclosure agreement she had signed with him.
Katie Ford was also in attendance, and invited Phillips to an after-party once the main event wrapped up. Of course Phillips wasn’t going to turn down this invitation from her boss, and she went along. This celebrity was there too, and continued to throw himself at Phillips despite her discomfort. After some unspecified series of afterparties that Ford kept inviting Phillips to, they ended up back at this celebrity’s hotel suite. Phillips went to the bathroom to collect herself so that she could then try and make her exit and go home, but when she came out of the bathroom Ford was gone. It was just Phillips and this celebrity, at which point he allegedly sexually assaulted her.
Phillips is unable to name this man because of the NDA, but she said that this celebrity was all over her at a movie premiere party. Getty Images is an online archive of photographs that document elite & celebrity events like this one that I have used in my journalistic research in the past. If you’re familiar with my past work, my journalistic methodology and theory of the case revolves around these digital archives available at all of our fingertips that have been accumulating for decades. There is information out there in the archives buried by time in a sea of data online, waiting to be uncovered by anybody ready to do the legwork.
She described this person as an “A-List celebrity”, as opposed to a politician or billionaire or prince. So I started searching Getty Images for names in Epstein’s black book and/or flight logs: Mick Jagger, Alec Baldwin, Chris Tucker, Kevin Spacey. Each of these names individually yields tens of thousands of image results on Getty, but I could save time by sorting the photographs by the date they were taken and jumping to the early 2000’s when these events of interest unfolded. But I had no luck and was running out of prospective celebrity names with verified association to Epstein.
But then I thought about the fact that Jean Luc Brunel - with his connections to Ford Models - was up near the entrance to this specific rabbit hole that I had found myself going down. I did some research on any verified celebrity acquaintances that he may have had, which yielded some new names to plug into Getty Images, such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson.
DiCaprio didn’t end up yielding any results, but I found this picture of Nicholson.
This picture was taken on September 27th, 2002 at a Premiere After-Party at Man Ray in New York City for the movie “About Schmidt”, which starred Nicholson in the titular role. If you have any healthy skepticism that the “party guest” in this picture is Lisa Phillips, it can be confirmed by the distinct beauty mark that she has off to the side of her chin.
When I first heard Phillips talking about her encounter with this nameless celebrity at a movie premiere party, I figured it would be just one of the many celebrity guests at such an event. But this was a premiere of a Nicholson movie - he was the man of the night. Phillips was invited by Epstein, and brought to Nicholson’s hotel room by Katie Ford. Phillips says she doesn’t know what the nature of the arrangement was between Epstein, Ford, and [Nicholson], but it seems to me that Phillips was procured in a premeditated, deliberate, coordinated way as Nicholson’s twisted gift to unwrap on his special night.
After this discovery, I looked into Nicholson’s past and found it to already be quite problematic, to the point that I am genuinely surprised he didn’t get swept up in the #MeToo movement at its height. In a Guardian article from 2000, he is described as having a long list of legal complaints filed against him, including slamming a prostitute’s head on the ground and rupturing another woman’s breast implant. There is also a report of Nicholson chasing Bridget Hall - another Ford Model - around the pool at the Chateau Marmont (a hotel owned by Andre Balazs). There is also further documentation from a 1997 newspaper of Nicholson visiting Brunel’s home and buying artwork from him.
In 1997, film director Roman Polanski was arrested for drugging and raping a 13 year old girl - a crime that took place at Jack Nicholson’s house. Nicholson’s girlfriend at the time, Angelica Huston, says that she saw Polanski and the girl at the house but “thought nothing of it” at the time. Polanski plead guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sex with a minor, but then the night before his sentencing he fled the country and remains a fugitive to this day. At the 2003 Oscars, Polanski infamously won the award for Best Director for The Pianist. Polanski couldn’t be in attendance, because he fled the country after pleading guilty to sex crimes with a 13 year old girl, and still received a standing ovation from many in the audience such as Meryl Streep. The camera cuts to Nicholson clapping and celebrating for a man that pled guilty to raping a 13 year old in Nicholson’s own home.
Nicholson recently turned 88 years old. He has long retired from acting, but is still celebrated whenever he makes a rare public appearance. For instance, he appeared at Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary special in February 2025 and was showered with affection. It isn’t too late for him to answer for all of this before he finally kicks the bucket.
Of course, Nicholson isn’t the only villain in this story still out there living their best life. In 2007, Katie Ford stepped down as CEO of Ford Models but remains on the board of directors. That same year she was invited to a United Nations conference on human trafficking. In numerous interviews, she reiterates the same canned, bizarre sentiment that she - a woman in her 50’s at the time who had spent her career in the modeling industry - had never heard of human trafficking until this 2007 conference. After this conference she has reportedly dedicated her life to combating human trafficking and is the CEO of the nonprofit Freedom For All.
In 2010 - 4 years after they divorced - Katie Ford and Andre Balazs hosted a private event with an auction to benefit “Free The Slaves” on top of the Standard Hotel, which Balazs owns. It feels at least slightly awkward to have an auction at a slave benefit, but I digress. This event was also attended by Ghislaine Maxwell, who can be seen in the background of this photo of actress Selma Blair. This was 2 years after Epstein’s first conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution.
It is at the very least, a curious pivot for Katie Ford. Was this an exercise in reputational management? Is this an endeavor to alleviate guilt from her past associations with sex traffickers? Or something more sinister? In the case of Jimmy Savile, he was renowned for his extensive charity work spanning decades at hospitals all over the UK. It wasn’t until after he died that it became apparent that this charity work was a ploy to gain access to abuse vulnerable populations. Predators gravitate towards roles that give them access. With no hard evidence there is nothing to do but ponder, and prompt Katie Ford to speak on her past with Jeffrey Epstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell. She has never made a public statement about these relationships. If she has nothing to hide and is so passionate about combatting the evils of sex trafficking, it seems like something she should be willing to talk openly about.
Watch the video report on this story over on YouTube: