Ghislaine Maxwell

Born into privilege, Ghislaine Maxwell (b. Dec 25 1961) parlayed her late father Robert Maxwell's media fortune and society yacht Lady Ghislaine into a trans-Atlantic social career that brought her inside circles of presidents, royals and billionaires.

After Robert's mysterious fall from the yacht in November 1991 and a Jerusalem funeral attended by Israel's leadership, rumors of his Mossad work followed his youngest child to New York, where she forged an enduring partnership with financier Jeffrey Epstein. The pair used Maxwell's address book to court heavyweights such as Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and retail magnate Leslie Wexner while, according to U.S. prosecutors, trafficking and exploiting minors. Maxwell is now serving a 20-year federal sentence; prosecutors continue to mine her knowledge of Epstein's network.¹²³⁴

  Early Life and Media Profile (1960s-1991)

Ghislaine, the ninth child of Czech-born publisher Robert Maxwell, was raised in Oxford and educated at Marlborough College and Oxford University. British tabloids chronicled her 1980s London debut: managing Oxford United FC, launching "Kit-Cat Club" soirées and christening the 180-ft motor-yacht Lady Ghislaine in her honor.⁵⁶ Press fascination only intensified after Robert purchased the Daily News and moved her to Manhattan months before his death. Society pages depicted her as a "glamorous ambassador" gliding between the Waldorf-Astoria and Cannes while dispensing her father's largesse.⁷

  Media Spotlight After the Maxwell Scandal (1991-mid-1990s)

When the pension-fund shortfall surfaced in 1991, journalists followed the heiress from the Canary Islands inquest to Manhattan charity galas, contrasting her couture lifestyle with employees' empty retirement accounts. Coverage in outlets such as the Los Angeles Times and Guardian framed her as both victim and beneficiary of Robert's empire.⁸⁹ By 1995 she was a fixture at New York art openings and, increasingly, at Epstein's East 71st Street mansion.

  Network of the Ultra-Rich

  Partnership With Jeffrey Epstein

Accounts vary on when the two met—some place the introduction in the late 1980s via Robert Maxwell, others at a 1991 New York party—but by 1993 the pair were inseparable on society circuits. Vanity Fair's 2003 profile cited Maxwell as Epstein's "best friend" who "organized much of his life," handling guest lists and travel.¹⁸ Prosecutors and witness testimony later described her as recruiter, transporter and, at times, participant in abuse, leading to her 2021 trafficking conviction.¹⁹

  Intelligence Allegations: Mossad and the Maxwell Legacy

Robert Maxwell's funeral drew Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir; the Washington Post noted Seymour Hersh's claims that he had helped Mossad locate nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu.²⁰ Former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe and investigative reporter Julie K. Brown later asserted that both Robert and Ghislaine worked with Israeli intelligence and that Epstein ran blackmail operations for the service—assertions denied by ex-PM Naftali Bennett yet still probed by journalists.²¹²²

  Legal Reckoning and Present Day

Arrested in New Hampshire on July 2 2020, Maxwell was convicted on five federal counts on Dec 29 2021 and received a 20-year sentence plus $750 k fine in June 2022.²³ She remains incarcerated at FCI Tallahassee, where investigators continue to question her about Epstein's broader network amid ongoing congressional and media scrutiny.²⁴

  Epstein / Maxwell Romance

Epstein and Maxwell's romance appears to have fizzled out about a decade after it began, with multiple independent sources converging on late-1999 to 2002 as the period when they stopped dating and shifted into a purely business-and-social alliance.

  Key evidence

  Bottom line

• They met in 1991 and were widely seen as a romantic couple through the mid-to-late 1990s.
• Break-up window: multiple first-hand and contemporary accounts place the end of the relationship circa 2000–2002, with professional ties (estate management, financing, shared social circle) continuing afterward.
• By March 2003 Epstein publicly framed Maxwell as simply his "best friend," and later filings refer to her as a "former girlfriend," confirming the romance was over.

So, while exact day-and-month records don't exist, the most credible evidence says Jeffrey Epstein stopped dating Ghislaine Maxwell around the turn of the millennium, certainly no later than 2002.

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  References

  Footnotes

1. Los Angeles Times ↩

2. The Washington Post ↩

3. ABC News ↩

4. Politico ↩

5. ABC News ↩

6. The Guardian ↩

7. ABC News ↩

8. Los Angeles Times ↩

9. The Guardian ↩

10. Business Insider ↩

11. Axios ↩

12. New York Magazine ↩

13. The Washington Post ↩

14. Vanity Fair ↩

15. The Washington Post ↩

16. The Times of Israel ↩

17. Axios ↩

18. Vanity Fair ↩

19. ABC News ↩

20. The Washington Post ↩

21. The Times of Israel ↩

22. The Electronic Intifada ↩

23. ABC News ↩

24. The Washington Post ↩

25. Business Insider ↩

26. Business Insider ↩

27. Vanity Fair ↩

28. ABC News ↩

29. AP News ↩

30. Vanity Fair ↩

31. The Guardian ↩

32. Reuters ↩

33. The Washington Post ↩

34. The New Yorker ↩