We Know The Sick Secrets of Epstein's World

The Daily Beast Podcast

The Daily Beast

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4.6 • 8.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Joanna Coles speaks with models and activists Carré Otis and Stacey Williams as they rip the glamour off the fashion industry and expose a system they say functioned as a pipeline for exploitation, coercion, and trafficking—targeting teenage girls with promises of fame while trapping them in debt, silence, and fear. From midnight “fittings” and retaliatory blacklisting to alleged links with powerful figures like Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, the conversation traces how agencies, photographers, and insiders allegedly operated with impunity for decades. Otis details being trafficked and abused as a minor, while Williams recounts the career cost of refusing advances—and the industry-wide normalization that kept it all hidden in plain sight. Now, with legislative momentum, the Model Alliance pushing reforms, and lawmakers like Ro Khanna demanding oversight, the episode zeroes in on a single question: what happens when one of fashion’s most protected systems is finally forced into the light. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	There was a lot more organization than I think any of us could comprehend at that time.
0:05.5	It wasn't just a Jeffrey Epstein, it wasn't just a Jean-Luc Brunel.
0:09.1	The modeling industry was and is a pipeline for trafficking vulnerable people to powerful predators.
0:19.5	I'm still out here begging Congress to hold these guys
0:23.1	accountable, begging them to hold the systems accountable, and for transparency from the DOJ
0:29.3	and the White House.
0:33.1	I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast, and today we have an exceptional
0:37.3	conversation for you with two supermodels.
0:41.3	One we've talked to before, Stacey Williams, who's brought with her today, Kerry Otis, whose name you will remember from the 80s and the 90s of a, as a huge supermodel, a strides, the world of fashion, of beauty, of glamour, of magazines,
0:59.1	and who suffered incredible sexual abuse by the owner of the modeling agency that she was
1:07.4	working for. And the two of them together are fascinating, discussing the structural
1:13.6	issues in the modeling agency. And actually this week, they announced that Roe Kana, the representative
1:20.5	from Silicon Valley, has actually got the modeling agencies in front of the oversight committee to really look at
1:29.3	how did the Epstein situation happen?
1:33.3	How did so many models end up being funneled through Epstein's industrial complex
1:43.3	and the complicity of those working in the modeling industry
1:47.9	who mercilessly served up 13-year-olds, 14-year-old to rapacious men.
1:55.6	Let's get into it.
1:58.9	I'm thrilled to be joined by Stacey Williams, who seems like a regular visitor at this point,
2:05.3	and Kerry Otis, who you've brought along.
2:08.7	And Kerry, what I really want to do is obviously ask you about your magnificent hair colour.
2:13.2	We'll come on to that.
	...

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