The Wild Alleged Link Between Princess Diana And Jeffrey Epstein

Deep in the 20,000 documents released by the House Oversight Committee last week is an email dated October 8, 2016, from Jeffrey Epstein to Jeffrey Epstein.

full message It consists of a long, rough draft that reads like a never-published profile of the disgraced financier.

Among the dinner party vignettes, musings on the billionaire class, and quotes from Epstein himself is a respectful anecdote that serves to illustrate the stratospheric level of reach the onetime high school math teacher was able to achieve in just a few decades.

“In 1994, just as Prince Charles was declaring his love for Camilla Parker Bowles on television, Jeffrey Epstein was sitting with his arms around Princess Diana at a dinner at London’s Serpentine Gallery,” it says, noting that Diana “wore her ‘revenge’ dress that evening.”

Another version of the draft included in the transcript is slightly less descriptive; He says Epstein was just sitting “next to” Diana.

Whatever his exact location, the presence of the world’s most notorious sex offender at what has become a pretty famous moment in Diana lore is a bit shocking to read.

There are clues about the identity of the author in the draft. The author clearly had close access to Epstein and several others in his orbit, and states that he was once part of an effort To buy New York Magazine.

During the weekend, Semaphore’s Ben Smith made a phone call to confirm that the author is indeed the controversial journalist Michael Wolff.

Smith reported that Wolff drafted this article in 2014 as a sort of teaser for Epstein, with the aim of gaining greater access to Epstein’s most powerful and wealthy friends and fleshing out the details of the news.

Wolff said he told Epstein, “That may be the case, but I need access to everyone.”

“I’m trying to manipulate him into giving me something, and that something might be: Give everyone access,” Wolff said, according to Smith. (Much of his conversation with Wolff focused on the ethics of his friendly relationship with Epstein.)

The article, consisting of more than 8,600 words, was to be published in New York Magazine; An email sent to Epstein in 2015 consisted of a long list of fact-checking questions, including one about mingling with Princess Diana at the Serpentine Gallery. Epstein does not appear to have responded, at least not via email.

The London meeting, if it had occurred, would have occurred more than a decade before Epstein was publicly accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl at his Palm Beach mansion, among other underage girls, and long before the Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown revealed explosive details about the “sweetheart” plea deal that Epstein was able to pull off with prosecutors while continuing to find new girls to exploit.

As an anecdote in Wolff’s story, it manages to show Epstein’s reach going back to the 1990s, when he was hanging out with then-real estate baron Donald Trump.

The 1994 “revenge” dress marked a contentious period for Diana. As Wolff noted, she had gone to the gallery for a fundraiser hosted by Vanity Fair on the evening that ITV aired an interview in which she admitted to being unfaithful in her marriage to then-Prince Charles.

The late royal paired her off-the-shoulder evening gown with a sapphire and pearl necklace. The dress, which reached above her knees, was widely interpreted as a message to her estranged husband and the world that she refused to be ignored. In the photos, she is seen walking towards the venue in a swirl of black silk, one arm outstretched to shake someone’s hand.

HuffPost reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment but did not immediately receive a response.