Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump shared an “abiding obsession” of chasing supermodels as part of their long-standing friendship, according to biographer Michael Wolff.
Wolff, who participated in over 100 hours of interviews with Epstein, told CNN’s OutFront with Erin Burnett on Wednesday that he believed hunting for women “was probably the most important part of their lives.”
The author of All or Nothing and regular contributor to The Daily Beast Podcast said Epstein and Trump were friends from the late 1980s through to 2004, in “a period in American life when models were in the zeitgeist, supermodels, people who wanted to be models.”
“And these two men, Epstein and Trump, this was their obsession. I think it was probably the most important part of their lives. Women and money, money and models.”
Donald Trump owned the Miss USA beauty pageant from 1996 to 2015. Epstein had close business ties to Les Wexner, owner of lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret.
“They started modeling agencies,” Wolff said. “This was an abiding obsession. They spent an enormous amount of time, chasing models, figuring out how to be with models, figuring out how to get models to like them.”
Trump was married to Marla Maples from 1993 to 1997, but was rumored to have had relationships with several models in that decade. Newsweek reported he dated models Kylie Bax, Allison Giannini and Rowanne Brewer Lane.
In 1998, Trump met Melania Knauss at a New York Fashion week party. The businessman had taken another date to the event. The pair eventually married in 2005.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told the Daily Beast in a statement, “Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--t and has been proven to be a fraud. He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
Wolff has spoken at length about the Epstein case, telling The Daily Beast Podcast last week: “People are starting to understand that how significant Jeffrey Epstein is to the Donald Trump story.”
He also revealed the eerie message sent to him by Epstein prior to his death.
“I believe that I got the last message from him before he died,” Wolff told host Joanna Coles. “And this came through one of his lawyers on a Friday evening. He died on Saturday morning.”
“His message to me hours before this happened was—and it was just in response to me asking how he was—and he said, ‘Still hanging around.’”
Epstein was found in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on Aug. 10, 2019. A 2023 report by the Department of Justice determined that he died by suicide.
Previously, the White House has attacked Wolff’s work, calling him a “disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies in order to sell fiction books because he clearly has no morals or ethics.”
While President Trump has been avoiding discussing the Epstein files, the White House’s seemingly official line is that Trump threw Epstein out of his club for being a “creep.”
Trump himself has referenced Epstein as a “creep,” while White House communications director Steven Cheung has used the same language in denials.
“The White House is looking clearly, looking to do anything to close down this story,” Wolff added on CNN. “Anything to distance Donald Trump from Jeffrey Epstein and for good reason, because they were so close for so long.”
