Jeffrey Epstein was not the only monster

0:00Car crashes injure over a million of us every year because we're human. For over a decade, Waymo's been building a driver that's safer. Statistically, 10 times safer in the cities we serve. Not because humans aren't enough, but because they're everything. Based on over a 94 % reduction in serious injury or worse crash rates, Learn more at Waymo.com. The New Statesman. Hey, Amy, it's Oli Dugmore from The New Statesman. Really looking forward to our conversation, if I can say that, because obviously what we're talking about is really important, but also obviously really somber. this clearly is a far-reaching interview in terms of what it means even for the sort of constitutional settlement of Britain right it's a story about monarchy it's a story about abuse and it's a story about a person at the heart of all of those things so yeah I am looking forward to interviewing you but maybe that's not the right way to describe it either way I'll see you later well I'm very happy to be here I'm always appreciative when people care about this story and I can't wait to talk to you.

1:22Jeffrey Epstein, a name, a criminal, linked with the downfall of rich and powerful figures around the world. Politicians, academics, philanthropists, a prince. His reach and his influence seemingly knew no bounds. But at its core, this isn't a story about elite circles rubbing shoulders and trading secrets. It's a story of sexual abuse, of young women and girls. Over a thousand of Epstein's victims have now been identified. Some have chosen to come forward publicly, and among them, there was one voice which was the loudest. Virginia Roberts-Gefray. If you're listening in the UK, you probably know a part of her story.

2:01You've probably seen the famous image of her and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. I should say now that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor denies all the accusations made against him. Sky Roberts, Gefray's father, also strongly denies the claims made against him, some of which are included in this podcast. But back to Virginia. Solicited by Ghislaine Maxwell at the age of 16 while working at Mar-a-Lago, Jafre was sexually trafficked around the world for the next two years. In 2021, she decided she wanted to fight back and pursued legal action against Epstein and then Maxwell and then Andrew McBatt and Windsor.

2:34In 2021, she decided she wanted to tell her own story in its entirety. Joining forces with the ghostwriter Amy Wallace, she began working on Nobody's Girl, a memoir of surviving abuse and fighting for justice. But in 2025, prior to publication, Jafre was found dead in her home in Australia. She let it be known that should anything happen to her, she wanted her story to be told. I believe it has the potential to impact many lives, she wrote in an email to her publicist and ghostwriter shortly before she died. I'm Catherine Hughes, producer of The Exchange from The New Statesman. In this episode, Amy Wallace joins Ollie Dugmore to continue telling this story.

3:22Amy Wallace, it's slightly unusual, I think, to be interviewing a ghostwriter, right? Because normally the ghostwriter is not part of the story. And yet here we are having this conversation. I mean, we're obviously going to talk about the contents of the book, but I would just like to start by inviting your comment on where we are and the fact that this conversation is taking place. It's unusual, isn't it? Yeah, I don't know that it's unprecedented, but it's definitely rare for a ghostwriter. There's a reason the term is ghost. You're supposed to be invisible. And that was what I signed up for.

3:57And that was what I expected. And that's what I welcomed, frankly. You know, this is Virginia's book. It was driven by her desire to help other survivors of sexual abuse. And she's the one not only who told her story, but who brought so much of the motivation for writing it to bear. So I was her facilitator, basically. And it's only because she tragically passed away a year ago, April, that, you know, I was asked to step forward and try to speak up for her. You alluded to it a little bit there in your answer, but what did she want to achieve with this project? Why did she want you to write this?

4:39Well, you know, she kind of says it in the very end of the book. She says, obviously, the Jeffrey Epstein story is what everybody knows about. But she really wanted to help all victims of sexual abuse, anyone who's been coerced into a sexual situation. And because she understood the shame that survivors feel and that they struggle with it every day. Many, most do not ever tell another human being about what they've been through. And so they carry that burden alone. She was so clear on what that felt like and wanting to articulate what that felt like as a way of letting those people know that they're not alone.

5:25I think she says at the very end of the book, if I've helped one person, just one person, then I've achieved my aim. And I know that she has helped so many more than one because I hear from them. Basically, me and her little brother, Sky, and his wife, Amanda, we have become the people that people reach out to to talk about the personal impact of the book for them. And it's been incredibly moving, heartbreaking, but also inspiring that a single book, because of the way Virginia went about telling her story, has really helped people process their own experience. And I've heard from many people, men and women, who have shared that with me.

6:14So it's powerful. Could you tell me a little bit about the project itself? What was it like working with her? How long did it take you to put it together? And I guess a remark as well, perhaps, about what it's like to publish and to be posthumously. You know, it's obviously, again, it's very unusual. Yeah, it's very unusual. Well, the process was we took four years to write the book. I think right around now is exactly five years since I met her in person for the first time. We had already been working starting in around April 2021. We had been working on Zoom. She was in Australia. I was in California.

6:52We had to write a book proposal and try to figure out how we were going to tell the story. And so we've been working together. And then she had to go to Paris, or she didn't have to. She opted to go at the request of French prosecutors who were trying to keep Jean-Luc Brunel, who is an Epstein associate, modeling agent, procurer of girls, in prison. He had been jailed and he was trying to get out on bail. And why do I have to stay in this horrible prison? And she, on her own dime, with her own money, flew to Paris and stayed for about a week. And we figured out that because it was actually faster for me to go to Paris than to go all the way to Australia.

7:30And so that's the first time I met her. But I ended up going to Australia twice. I lived with the family. I lived in their guest room for probably about a month in total over two different visits. and you know it was just a lot of talking a lot of going over what we were going to discuss then discussing it then going over what I'd written so that she could give me feedback to make it you know more authentic to her I think a lot of people think ghostwriters just turn tape recorder on and and transcribe it and kind of clean up the prose and that's just not the case ever. I've written three books, but in this case, particularly three collaborative books.

8:15She had so much on the line. There was so much at stake. There were so many people, powerful people who wanted to shut her up and had threatened her openly to tell her to be quiet. So we couldn't afford to make a single mistake. So my job also included, in addition to the work with Virginia. It included a lot of secondary reporting around her, finding people who'd known her at different points in her life and interviewing them. I went to Loxahatchee, Florida, where she grew up and met people and also just looked at the house she grew up in. I went to Palm Beach, of course, looked at the empty lot where Epstein's home once was.

8:59It has been raised and the number will no longer be on that street. The noob house will not have the same number. Everyone's trying to erase, you know, the evidence of Epstein. But so it was a very lengthy process and it went in stops and starts. She was having a lot of struggles, which she writes about in the book. You know, the scourge of that trauma stays with you, even when you're a very strong, resilient person like she was. So yeah, it was about a four-year process. And then after she died, you know, the question, she had already left explicit instructions that she wanted the book published in the case of her death.

9:39And we had locked the book. The last time I was in Australia, I'd read her the whole thing. We'd made some changes and I'd shown her the cover and we had the title. So we wouldn't have necessarily been able to move forward if we hadn't been at that point. You know, this is her book. We couldn't write it for her without her being there. So yeah, then we just got ready to publish after that. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a heartbreaking book and we'll get into the details over the course of our conversation now, but I wanted to start with a quote, which was devastating to read. I'll quote it now. I'd always been comforted by the idea of reincarnation because it promised that my piss poor excuse for a life was not the only one I was going to get.

10:28I mean, it sums up a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're right. The book is a tough read, particularly the first half. And it was written. We had to get through that early abuse. And she suffers a lot of abuse before she meets Jeffrey Epstein.

10:52but you know the idea was that it moves into her fighting back and then there's something of a triumphant finish but by the time the book is published she's she's gone so it doesn't land the same way that we had designed it so yeah she had a really really tough life she was victimized from the age of seven on. And what you really learned through her telling of her own experience is that when you are told as a young person that your value, that your worth is to serve at the pleasure of adults sexually, that sets you up for future manipulation. and I've said it many times but you know victims of sexual abuse sexual trafficking are not born they are made and the reason that that's important to state is that there is this whole viewpoint that still exists that you know these girls deserved it you know that they they were money grubbers they were whores they were prostitutes they enjoyed the private jets and the many hundred thread count sheets and the fancy lifestyle.

12:15Who wouldn't? Lifestyles of the rich and famous, fabulous. And that they were willing to trade their bodies for that experience because they were not admirable people. And the question that's often asked is, if it was so terrible, why didn't you just leave? explaining her past abuse helps answer that question and I hope helps people understand why didn't you just leave because you had grown up in a world from the age of seven on that said this was how the world worked adults raped children and they got away with it so what how would you what would you think that you would run out of the Manhattan townhouse onto East 71st Street and yell, this old man is abusing me and trafficking me to his rich and powerful friends and someone would help you?

13:11No, you didn't think that. And frankly, no one would have. So this idea that they could have just left, they often, their prospects were taken away, they didn't have any money. So that understanding is ignorant. That viewpoint is ignorant, in my view. And so it was very important to lay out and show how she became the person that ended up staying in the orbit of Maxwell and Epstein for more than two years. Also notably, two weeks into knowing them, Epstein threatens her younger brother and basically says, if you ever cross us we will hurt him so that there were carrots and sticks and both were being employed um and so only by telling you that whole story can you understand sort of why she was there for so long i yeah i don't know how people can make an argument like that with a straight face to be to be quite honest so unbelievably go to twitter you'll find it all over the place Yeah, that's true.

14:19Yeah. Unfortunately. I feel like there's a way of reading this that, for me, the stories of abuse, her story, it feels like Virginia basically spent years having to convince people that she existed, that she was real. And particularly when I think from the British perspective, when you talk about that in connection to the monarchy and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, there is such deference within this country towards the monarchy as an institution that everything is taken at face value. It's almost unquestioned. And I think there is such a contrast between a young woman, a victim of abuse, saying, like, this happened.

15:02I am real. Believe me. And that asymmetry, I think it speaks to so much in our society. And obviously you can say the same thing about Epstein. There's also a point here, right, about just about childhood and what a childhood is meant to be. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's many things to respond to there. I mean, one, you asked about the process of the book. One of the things I'd said to her the first time I met her on a Zoom when I was basically being interviewed for the job, is I said to her, you know, we are not going to start with the abuse. If we work together, we're not going to start by talking about the abuse because I really wanted to understand she was so resilient and so strong.

15:45And yet we knew from the chronology she'd been abused from seven years old on. Where did that resilience come from? And so, you know, the book begins with her early childhood and it was a happy one until it wasn't. And where she got, you know, she loved animals. She loved climbing trees. She loved, you know, nature. She loved, you know, particularly one particular horse that really helped her was still in her life when she began being abused. We needed to understand why she could withstand all of this. And there was something that just became very solid within her that helped her weather all of this.

16:27But yes, her childhood was taken from her. And in some ways, her ability to trust was taken from her, which is almost as devastating. You know, when your parents either are hurting you or are not sticking up for you, it really diminishes your own sense of your place in the world. And just to the point on the monarchy, I mean, you know, the famous photo of Virginia with Prince Andrew, at that point still a prince, arm around her bare midriff. Why was that picture taken? Because Virginia, she carried these disposable cameras with her everywhere she went when she traveled with Epstein because she thought, I may never go to these places again.

17:19You know, she didn't have a passport when she met them. She didn't have a cell phone when she met them. They were opening doors in that way to these experiences, but she didn't necessarily know that she would ever come back to London or Paris. So she brought these cameras with her. And when Ghislaine tells her that she's going to meet a prince that night and the prince arrives at Ghislaine's apartment, townhouse, the thought pops into her mind, my mom will kill me if I don't get a photo with a prince. She's excited. She thinks this is the best of us royalty. She, too. She's not British. But she, too.

17:57She says it's partly from Disney movies. You know, the prince is who comes and saves Cinderella. You know, you're meeting a prince, you're meeting somebody honorable. And she wants a record of that. And you can see it in her face in that photograph. There's this, I think you might call it unexpected to the typical reader, which is that, you know, despite the horrific allegations about her father, she doesn't immediately cut him out of her life. And again, it's a theme with Epstein that it's like Stockholm syndrome, right? It's like wondering how her behavior, what he will think of the way that she behaves.

18:37Could you talk a little bit about that? And perhaps what I know, I don't want to generalize about victims of abuse, but perhaps what that tells us about the nature of surviving abuse. Well, I think there is a broader commonality among victims that when you are a victim of childhood sexual abuse, a lot of burden is placed on you at a very young age to take care of the family. And here's what I mean by that. Stay silent when you're being abused so you don't break up your family. Because if you accuse one of the parents, what's going to happen? A bomb's going to go off in the house. You know, what will your other parent do?

19:15Will it break the family apart? And then later, and I think it is something that a lot of readers have really commented on, she tries to patch back together her relationship with her father for years. I mean, she has kids. She thinks, well, it's a shame that my kids can't know him. There are parts of him that are good. I think for many readers, they're like, what the hell? Why would you ever want your children around this man? But, you know, again, she's trying to fix the family unit. I think that that burden gets placed on the most vulnerable in the family. And she definitely struggled with that.

19:53We've mentioned Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor once already, and obviously, you know, stripped of his title, stripped of his royal position. But more than that, there's a very public component to that story, right? Whether it's the Newsnight interview, everything else that happens with him. And I'd be interested to hear how Virginia reacted to those events as they happened publicly? For example, when that interview took place, how did she respond to it? Yeah. She writes about this in the book where the interview comes out. And at that point, it's a little bit complicated, but there are these statutes of limitations in various, they're different in every country, every locality, every state has different ones.

20:33What are those? Those are the things that say, if you're abused, if you're abused as a child, you have this many years to file a claim. And after that, sorry, you're out of luck. In the state of New York, they had opened up what's called a look back window. And that was basically letting people from even before the statute of limitations to file claims. And that provided an opportunity for Virginia and many other survivors of all kinds to file claims. So her lawyers were already working on a claim against Andrew. And I believe her lawyers had been in touch with his lawyers and said, we're preparing this.

21:12Do you want to come to the table and talk to us about it? And they were not coming to the table. That's when the Emily Maitlis Newsnight interview drops. And I believe in the book, Virginia describes it as rocket fuel for her case. Because at that point, I mean, it's just ridiculous. He's saying, I don't sweat. Or actually, I do now, but I didn't for a while. So I couldn't have been sweating on the dance floor and I was at a pizza place in Woking, which is ridiculous sounding, but, you know, and you've had many people come forward and say, I was at the pizza place that night, you know. So, and I didn't, I don't have any memory of meeting her.

21:52And then all of this stuff about, I went to see Epstein to break up with him basically, because that was the honorable thing to do. And I think Emily says at that point, you know, he's a sex offender, you know, an honorable, Well, maybe it's not the right choice of words. I mean, it was such a train wreck of an interview. It showed such a lack of self-awareness. Obviously, he was defending himself, but there was no real emotion shown towards the victims, no real empathy.

22:35and yeah, it was huge. It remains huge. And that kind of started the ball rolling. She then files her suit.

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23:57Do you think this needs to go further than it has? And I appreciate I'm trying to use my words carefully here, but obviously we're talking about this now. The book is out. Other people are interviewing you. I mean, I'm not trying to ascribe ulterior motives here, but I'm just is this a part of more of an attempt to apply pressure in that way? Do you see what I'm saying? An attempt on whose part? To apply more pressure to the royal family on, well, I guess on your part, but I don't want to ascribe that motivation to you because I appreciate it. Again, it's unusual because you're a ghostwriter, right?

24:30Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. No, I mean, you know, he's been arrested for sharing trade secrets. That's the official charge as trade envoy. But, you know, this is how investigations work. You take what you have in the hand and they have all those emails from the Epstein files that show what he was doing. So they arrest him on the thing they've got him on. But there is evidence that they are looking all over the place for other kinds of misconduct. And they've even gone to the maybe unprecedented lengths of issuing a statement saying, we know we said we were investigating misconduct. We want to be super clear that includes sexual misconduct.

25:17Like when have you ever seen a law enforcement agency say that? They're saying we are fishing for that. We want to hear from you. And partly they're saying that I think because they were told by survivors, we don't trust you because you dropped the ball a hundred times already. So now you say you're investigating. We're not so sure. And so I think they felt they had to go the extra mile and really say we mean it. We really want to hear from you. You know, they're looking at the regional airports. That's where Epstein flew in and out of, brought girls in, moved them out, brought them to Buckingham Palace, wherever he'd brought them.

25:53That's where those girls were coming in. And, you know, obviously security is less there and it's more private. So I have hope that there is a real investigation going on. I have absolutely no reason to believe that Virginia would be the only person that Epstein would have served up to the former prince. I don't have any independent verification of that. But you can see in the emails, their intent was to keep him amused. And this was clearly something that amused him, to have pretty young girls served to him. So, you know, I await the results of the investigation eagerly. You know, the other thing to talk about there is just the royal family writ large and their reaction.

26:46And they've come a long way, actually not talking in sort of vague terms, but saying we will cooperate with and we support the police investigation of this particular person's misconduct. It used to be that the early statements were much more vague. You know, our hearts are with the survivors, but not ever acknowledging exactly who was being accused. I'm very appreciative of all of that. I think it's laudatory that the King and Prince William have done that. I would just say that Virginia first started talking about Prince Andrew in 2011, so they could have done it earlier. It's when they had to do it that they did it.

27:35You know, when you start to get the whiff that your entire system may be in trouble because of this one bad apple, you know, you start to realize with your press people that you better say something. And that's clearly what happened. I mean, the rest of the saying, right, is it's not just one bad. It's one bad apple spoils the orchard. Yeah, spoils the whole orchard. Yeah. People are emitting the conversation. And of course, we should say that he has denied all wrongdoing. And of course, he says he hasn't met her. But he also settled a huge lawsuit. We don't know exactly the number, even I don't know.

28:15But it has been estimated at 12 million pounds. So many people have tried to discredit Virginia. People who weren't, people who aren't willing to believe what she says. I mean, the photo you were talking about earlier, right? There are still people. There's still people. Who are out there saying, you know, it's doctored, whatever. I mean, why do you think that's the case? And I guess you could say it's not a new story that many women the world over are not believed when they come forward with accusations like this. Do you, I mean, talk to me about that. Do you think something specific to her? Do you think it's a broader culture of misogyny?

28:58I think it's a broader cultural thing. It's misogyny. It's these women, you know, they'll say anything. And it's misogyny in both genders. There's internalized misogyny for women that I don't want to believe that this could happen. Or I don't want to believe I want to be on the side of the guys. You know, I want to defend them. And, you know, obviously not all men, not all men. This has become a phrase. Not all men. You know, not all men try to drug their wives and rape them while they're unconscious, like in the Gisele Pelico, obviously. And there are good men. And one thing I've said many times, let's not turn this into a vilification of men.

29:42We need good men. Everybody needs to be standing up for the community, the society that they want to build. And that's not going to happen if just one gender is calling for it. And I know a lot of men are outraged and horrified by this kind of behavior. But disbelieving women when they come forward is the oldest trope in the book. And it's still alive and well, that whole strain. um you know she she had motivation she had financial motivation to lie she i mean this happened in in gillenne maxwell's trial where you know the women who came forward and testified virginia was not one of them but they they had been compensated from the epstein victims fund and man was that used against them how much money did you get you know um as if as if that's proof that they had incentive to lie about their experience.

30:43When in fact, coming forward is no picnic. It is every bit of your life is scrutinized. You know, it's a very, very difficult and prolonged experience. So the pursuit of justice comes at a great cost for any victim. And, yeah, I just think it's the way a lot of us have been taught to feel about women. You mentioned the Pelico case. Today, on the British front pages, the National Crime Agency has uncovered a forum where men were discussing, trading videos, making requests from each other for instances of abuse. And it's more than 200. The details are more than 200 people today have been passed to various law enforcement agencies, both victims and suspects that that Pelico case was not just a standalone thing.

31:44The other men have been suspected of drugging their wives and facilitating their sexual abuse. I mean, it is disgusting. No, and Epstein is not. I mean, I think there is a cadre of people who are like, Epstein was clearly a monster and he's dead. And Ghislaine Maxwell was his facilitator, but she's in prison. Case closed. Now, even within that ring, there are all the men that they trafficked girls and young women to. But beyond that, they're not the only ones. Like, don't try to, you know, reassure yourself that the only bad guys are now in, you know, have either met their end or met justice. This is, again, there's an underlying strain in our culture that commodifies young women.

32:44And in the case of the Gisele Pelico case seems to value, how to even put it, abusing women when they are the most helpless. They actually can't even move. You know, they're drugged. And that that's, people are getting off on that. I mean, that gets to not just their depravity, but something going on and something going wrong in the culture. That I think everybody, even if you haven't been a victim or, you know, you haven't known someone who experienced that, everybody should be thinking about that because there's something going on there. You mentioned the courts, the out-of-court settlements.

33:32And I just wondered, did those settlements impact the writing of the book? You know, is there stuff that you've had to leave unsaid because of the way these settlements have functioned? I don't think so. I mean, Virginia's settlement was very early on and it's public record. You can look at it in the case file. It's been made public. She was paid$500 ,000 by Epstein. And she didn't really know what to ask for. It was very, very early on. And it was before the Epstein Fund was created. It was early. and she basically she writes about it in the book she thought well what how much money would her lawyers said name a number and she thought i wonder what we would need to buy our first house you know they didn't have any money her family so she asked for five hundred thousand dollars and they bought their first house you know um other women have been paid millions um and and And as they have attested to, you know, their lives have been very much diminished by this experience and will never not be diminished.

34:44There's a lot that you need to do to get the help you need to recover from this stuff. And you never fully heal. It's always there. But one of the witnesses in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial spoke pretty eloquently about that, you know, about what what has gone missing in her life. And trust is a big thing. You know, the ability to have a healthy relationship of any kind, friendship or romantic, really gets eroded by this kind of abuse. You mentioned as well the kind of bulletproofing or the, I guess, steel manning of her account, given as well previous legal proceedings and all the rest. I mean, can you tell us what that process is like?

35:32What does that involve? What does it mean? Wow, it was it was multifaceted. Well, for the two plus years that Virginia was in Epstein's orbit, I had two huge bulletin boards with the whatever it was, 26, 27 months printed out, annotated. So what went on to there? The flight logs, some of the flight logs have been publicly released, not all. So I knew where Jeffrey, Virginia, and Ghislaine were as per the flight logs. I didn't totally know because they sometimes flew commercial. So again, it was a partial picture. But everything that we knew from the flight logs, I knew what cities they were in.

36:22Ghislaine Maxwell particularly had her picture taken a lot at fashion store openings and various social functions. She was a very social butterfly, got her picture taken a lot. So I went to Getty Images. I knew exactly where she was every day because of that. So why be that, you know, ridiculous, attentive to detail? Because we couldn't have them in the wrong city on the wrong date, you know. So that was just one basic thing. I have, you know, a room full of all the court documents. There's thousands of pages. sorry that have have been released um it was just a constant and then a lot of secondary reporting with people around her so it was i mean virginia mentions multiple incidents throughout the book where she has concerns about her own safety um people watching her cars appearing in driveways a break-in a death threat a credible death threat from the fbi Yeah, I'm I'm conscious that, you know, in a way you've taken on that baton, right, by telling this story.

37:38And I again, right, you're a you're a ghostwriter. So the idea that you'd even be sat here talking about this story now is already a slightly alien one. And then add on to the fact that because of who she is and the people that she's talking about, I mean, have you have you had been worried about your own safety? It's a brave thing to do. Yeah, well, thank you. I just felt it was important to do, so I'm doing it. But yes, I mean, I have been careful. To some degree, I reassure myself that, you know, at this point, the book is out. You know, hurting me, doing something to me doesn't prevent the book from coming out.

38:25You know, it doesn't change anything about what was reported in the book. And secondarily, you know, Virginia, and she discusses this at length in the book, made a very careful decision making about what names to use in the book. and since I've been promoting it for almost nine months at this point, I've said over and over again, I'm going to respect her decisions about what names she named. I will not be naming any more names. So if you're one of those guys, you've seen that I'm not personally going to be naming any more names. People who want to go into the public record can probably find those names, but I'm not going to say them.

39:05So silencing me doesn't really do much for you. The period of time that I really worried about most was there was about a six to eight week period between when they announced the book and when it came out. And that was the time that I thought if I were one of those guys, they know who they are, who she was trafficked to. That's the moment that I want to know, am I in the book? So were they going to break into our house? That was my worry. And so I removed all materials that would have given them, had they done so, which they did not do, that would have shown them either manuscript or my reporting or my audio tapes of Virginia talking or any of that.

39:51That was not on the premises and it was in a safe place. And then the minute we started doing press, I said that over and over again as a protective measure. You know, don't break into my house. I said to Piers Morgan, you know. Just let your viewers know. Don't break into my house. It's not there. So in that way, I was conscious that I had become kind of the tip of the spear and that that came with some danger.

40:21But as I say, I try to stay careful. But I think that the story is out there now and silencing me doesn't do much for them. I'd like to read another excerpt. I'll quote it now. When someone on Twitter speculated that the FBI might kill me to, quote, protect the ultra rich and well connected, end quote, I felt the need to respond. If I died suddenly, I tweeted, no one should believe that it was an accident. Quote, I'm making it publicly known that in no way, shape or form am I suicidal. End quote. I typed hastily but resolutely. Quote, I've made this known to my therapist and GP. If something happens to me for the sake of my family, do not let this go away and help me to protect them.

41:09Too many evil people want to see me quieted. End quote. I mean, in light of what happened, how hard is it for you hearing that now? Well, many people have gone back to that tweet to wonder if she was murdered instead of killed herself. And I was asked this as recently as last night at a public event. I believe that she did kill herself. Partly that's because her younger brother Sky was in Australia at the time. And I know some of the circumstances around how he found her and all of that. She certainly had many powerful and dangerous enemies. So I understand people's skepticism. Also, I understand it because there are so many people in this case that have allegedly committed suicide from Jeffrey Epstein to Jean-Luc Brunel.

42:11And certainly there were people who had something to gain by her not existing. So I get all of that skepticism. The thing that I know that most people just don't have any reason to know, although it's come out publicly, is that she had a lot of things going on in her life at that point. And one of those things was that she had separated from her husband, that she had alleged that he had domestically abused her, and that they were in a custody battle over their kids. and through an arcane process that I don't fully understand in Western Australia, he had gotten a restraining order, her husband, against her, and she was not allowed to communicate with her children at all.

42:57She was not allowed to see them, but she was also not allowed to call them, text them. She'd already been fined for sending her daughter, her youngest child, a song, not even words from Virginia, just a song, to stay in touch, and she'd been fined for that. And in the weeks leading up to when she died, when I talked to her, that was all she wanted to talk about. She wanted to talk about loving her kids, missing her kids, and just being driven crazy by the fact that she couldn't be in touch with them. And one thing to understand, that's beyond just a mother's love of her kids, a mother not wanting to be split off from her kids.

43:32The thing that I feel was going on for her in part that fueled this frenzy or frantic feeling in her is that part of the way that she had healed or tried to heal was by making a healthy family of her own. And all families have complications, but being a mother was a very important part of her life. and so to be completely cut off from her kids was very very very hard and she was in addition to all the other struggles that she had which she writes about openly that really affected her mental health that was happening um and you know she describes the voice that would come to her at times she tried to kill herself while we were working on the book did not succeed she describes the voice the voice says to her the world would be a better place without you in it your family would be better off without you here where does that voice come from it comes from being diminished and made to feel like nothing when you're a child and that was alive in her and I think it's alive in a lot of people who've been hurt in that way I think it's part of the reason that this book has sold as many copies as it has separate and apart from Epstein and Maxwell and sex trafficking and elites, you know, abusing poor people and all of the other things that are going on here.

45:01We have an epidemic of abuse that happens in people's homes. And I think we don't know the half of it in terms of how often it happens. It's not just clergy or coaches at school. It happens among families. and in some ways that's the most devastating because those people are your people and they're hurting you. So I knew that voice and she talked to me about it a lot. It was very active in her mind. And so for all of those reasons, kind of in that order, I do believe that she killed herself, unfortunately. And I think as well the decision to publish that section, right, But given everything that we've just spoken about, you know, the conspiracy theories that exist as relate to other parts of the case, the speculation that actually that is a really big decision to think about whether or not to include that.

46:02Right. Amy, we're coming to the end of our time together. And I just like to offer you the chance to provide some final remarks that people who've listened to our conversation, people that will read the book, people that have read the book. I mean, what do you think people should take away from it? What do you think people should learn from listening to us now? What is this story about? Well, I would say to anyone who hasn't read the book yet and is intrigued and wants to do it, take breaks. That's been the first half of the book is a rough road. And she actually tries to give you breaks. we came up with a device that readers will recognize where she throws into the future and basically reassures you that things are going to be okay.

46:53But of course, that lands very differently because she's no longer with us. But the other thing that I hope, you know, I think the thing that Virginia wanted the most was to help other victims of abuse feel less alone. And I know that she succeeded in that. But I hope the other thing that people take out of it is that if you don't like the world that you're living in, if you want to live in a world that's better, you can make a difference. You individually can. Because this is a person who didn't graduate from high school, didn't grow up with any money, was incredibly hurt for a long period of time, was always dealing with the ramifications of trauma.

47:39And at one point she decides, I want to make the world a better place. And amazingly, she does it. And one thing that I think we all really need to think about is we put too much burden on the survivors of trauma to keep this issue alive. They're the most vulnerable among us. We all need to be standing up and saying, this isn't the world I want to live in. And, you know, if you don't underestimate the power of your own individual outrage is the is the line that I've now been saying over and over again, you individually in this audience, think about what kind of world you want to live in and don't give up and go, well, what can I do?

48:27What can I little old me do? You know, in the United States, I think a lot of people are, are depressed, you know, it's like, what, But how could I change under this Trump administration that kind of does whatever it wants, whether it's legal or not? What could I do? And I think that this book has an answer, which is you can do a lot and gather together and decide what matters to you and speak up on behalf of yourself, of your kids, but also on behalf of the people who have a harder time speaking up because they've been hurt so badly. I really hope that Virginia I'm inspired by her legacy it's made me much more outspoken I was a ghostwriter for a reason I like to be behind the scenes but if she could do it then we all can and I really hope that people get that message Amy thank you for giving us your time to talk about it it's a really really important conversation and I'm grateful thank you thank you for having me

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