Best of the Best: Jess Michaels Survived Epstein. Now She’s Speaking Up

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Speaker 15 Hi, everyone, and welcome to The Best People. Since the government shutdown ended, there's been a renewed focus on releasing the Epstein files to the public.

Speaker 15 So we thought it would be a good time to re-up one of our favorite episodes of The Best People. We first released back in mid-September with Jess Michaels.
Jess is incredible.

Speaker 15 She's not only a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse, She, along with the other victims, has become an advocate for truth and transparency and justice.

Speaker 15 She and her lawyer, Jennifer Freeman, Freeman, joined me to talk about her experience, to tell her story, and talk about what accountability looks like for her and many of the victims.

Speaker 15 We wanted to share her story with you here again to remind everyone of the human toll of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghillene Maxwell's crimes.

Speaker 15 To put things in context, this episode was recorded on September 9th, the day Jeffrey Epstein's birthday book was first released to the public.

Speaker 15 And a note to our listeners, this episode contains discussions around sexual assault, so please listen with care. With that, this is the best people and this is Jess Michaels and Jennifer Freeman.

Speaker 16 Literally all of these powerful men and women were looking at us as toys and as jokes and as playthings.

Speaker 16 and didn't see fit to tell anyone or try to stop it.

Speaker 15 Hi everyone and welcome to the Best People Podcast. The best people are often the ones going first and telling the truth, especially when that truth is painful.

Speaker 15 They're not always women, but we find more often than not they are.

Speaker 15 This is the Best People Podcast and this is Jess Michaels and her attorney Jennifer Freeman. Thank you both for being here.

Speaker 18 Good to be with you.

Speaker 16 Thank you so much for having me here, Nicole.

Speaker 15 I'm so moved by everyone who comes on the show, but I'm only changed by a handful of interviews and guests. And I was changed by my conversation with you on the show.

Speaker 15 So that's why I wanted to have a chance to talk to you a little bit more today.

Speaker 16 Thank you. That

Speaker 16 means the world to me. Thank you.

Speaker 15 How do you

Speaker 15 find the courage not just to survive what you survived at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, but to make talking about the trauma part of your healing?

Speaker 16 That's a great question because talking about it was was a very clear mission for me early on

Speaker 16 because

Speaker 16 I couldn't.

Speaker 16 When I first started even processing what happened,

Speaker 16 I could go five minutes. And this, this includes writing because I'm a big journaler.

Speaker 16 So, so I would try to write and I could go five minutes, 10 minutes, and I would be hit with a stomachache, a headache.

Speaker 16 I would fall into coma-like sleep because I just wasn't capable of handling the truth of it all and really facing all of the feelings around it. And so it is taken,

Speaker 16 I made a concerted effort, I would say, by 2020, I was slowly, day by day, inching my way into finding my words and healing this injury.

Speaker 16 And a lot of people don't understand that when we go through sexual harm, we can enter this part of our brain like for trauma, any kind of trauma.

Speaker 16 You can enter a part of the brain called the brachis area and that actually is the same area that is injured when someone goes through a stroke so they can lose the ability to take the feelings of what happened and turn them into words and so I've literally been rewiring my brain and healing that injury for the last five years purposely, because I know that's the part that people miss in a survivor story.

Speaker 15 I asked you your permission when you were on TV and I just want to ask again, I mean, are you comfortable telling us what happened?

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 17 So

Speaker 16 there are very specific parts of my story that I always like to share because I think it helps establish a pattern of behavior, specifically in regard to Jeffrey Epstein, but I think in the whole sex trafficking, sexual harm arena.

Speaker 16 I met Jeffrey Epstein through a friend that I knew really well. She was a professional dancer.
She was my roommate. She was someone that I had spent a lot of time with for a year and a half.

Speaker 16 I thought she was a sister to me. And

Speaker 16 I came back from a contract in Tokyo. I was dancing with a company there.

Speaker 16 I came back from the contract and she was telling me all about this wealthy Wall Street guy that she had learned to do massage with.

Speaker 16 And I'd like to point out and remind people, this is a really common thing that dancers do. We work on each other's bodies all the time, before rehearsals, before class, in between

Speaker 16 acts in a show.

Speaker 16 And massage is a really big part of our lives.

Speaker 16 So when she said there was this wealthy guy who loves dancers, loves artists, and is willing to train her to be a massage therapist, giving her all this money to learn, not just for the actual massage, but to learn.

Speaker 16 And then he was flying her all over the world to go with him wherever he went. I thought she is the luckiest person on the planet because he also allowed her to go to auditions.

Speaker 16 He allowed her to leave on contracts and come back. And that just seemed like the ideal position.

Speaker 16 Now, the other part of my story I really like to be clear about is that I had worked really hard to become a professional dancer and I was excelling. I had just come back from Tokyo.

Speaker 16 I had worked for MC Hammer there. And two weeks before I met Jeffrey Epstein, I had been in Aretha Franklin video as one of her backup dancers.
I mean, I was excelling.

Speaker 16 I was thriving. I was confident.

Speaker 16 I was outgoing. I wasn't afraid of much.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 when I heard about this opportunity, I was, I was excited, of course, for my friend, but I was also jealous because I wanted that same opportunity. And for two months,

Speaker 16 I kept hearing all about Jeffrey Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and seeing the money that she had.

Speaker 16 And finally, after about two months, she said, Hey, I got a dance contract and I want to introduce you to him. If you're, if you're interested, he's looking for a backup person.
And I thought, great,

Speaker 16 gladly.

Speaker 16 So I got the address of his Madison Avenue office. And And I know this because, as I said, I'm an avid journaler.
And so I had my 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992 planner. And

Speaker 16 on July 2nd, 1991 is Jeffrey Epstein's address, his phone number, his assistant's name, her phone number, all in that day planner. When I went down to his office,

Speaker 16 the interesting thing is that when I met him and he talked about

Speaker 16 this job, he was very stoic and very professional.

Speaker 16 He asked me questions about the body, really quizzed me to see how much I knew, what I didn't know, and set himself up as the authority that he knew so much about the body.

Speaker 16 And the questions he asked me made me feel really insecure about what I knew. And so at one point he said, look,

Speaker 16 come around the back of the desk. I want to give you something.
So he. He opens this drawer and in the drawer were a dozen of the same book, the book of massage.

Speaker 16 And he he pulls it out and he said, You're going to have to study this book. And I thought, now I know I can get this job.
I am a hyper overachiever.

Speaker 16 Just give me something to study, and I know I can win. So I took that book.
I went and grabbed a three-subject notebook from a store, and I went home and I started studying it right away.

Speaker 16 My roommate comes home that night, and she said, Jeffrey liked you. You're going to call his office and make an appointment for a trial massage.
And I think, great.

Speaker 16 So my appointment was July 9th, 1991 at 7 p.m. And it was at a penthouse.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 a doorman turned a key and let me up to this apartment that when the elevator door opened,

Speaker 16 I arrived inside this

Speaker 16 palatial looking penthouse, floor to ceiling windows all the way around, a sunken living room. And it was really in that moment, honestly, Nicole, that I thought, oh, he really is rich.

Speaker 16 His, his office had been kind of stark, but this, this location was very,

Speaker 16 like I said, posh, palatial, expensive. And

Speaker 16 I was aware that it was a setting I was not used to being in.

Speaker 16 Jeffrey Epson comes around the back of

Speaker 16 this foyer.

Speaker 16 And he's wearing a white bathrobe and he has a white towel. And he says,

Speaker 16 he introduces himself, says again, says hi, all that. But I'm really trying

Speaker 16 to be the brave person that I am. Like I'm, I'm outgoing and I, and I say the thing out loud.
I say the quiet part out loud.

Speaker 16 I say, why do you hire professional dancers to do massage when clearly you could hire

Speaker 16 professional masseuses? And he said, oh, well, dancers, you know, they just, they love, you know, they love taking care of themselves. Their bodies are gorgeous.

Speaker 16 They know more about the body than most people do. And they know how to take care of the body.
And you wouldn't want a fat personal trainer, would you?

Speaker 16 And it was at that moment that he removes his

Speaker 16 bathrobe and he doesn't look at me and he doesn't ask me the question.

Speaker 16 He just states the fact. He said, and dancers are comfortable with nudity.

Speaker 16 And at that moment,

Speaker 16 I

Speaker 17 think,

Speaker 16 well, she didn't, she didn't say anything about nudity.

Speaker 16 He didn't say anything about nudity, but he's acting like this is normal. Like this is, this is not a big deal for him.
This is professional. This is how it's done.
And it's not a big deal.

Speaker 16 So he lays the towel down and he lays down. And I, I,

Speaker 16 I jump into the, I'm going to be professional too. I'm just going to be professional about this.
So I grab my cheat sheet that I made from the book that I had studied.

Speaker 16 And I, I had all the hand positions written down and I'm talking him through this.

Speaker 16 And Nicole, I want to stop for a second because I know this is a lot for people to hear, but there's a reason why I'm actually telling you this much detail.

Speaker 16 And it has to do with something that happened today in the news. So bear with me.

Speaker 16 I'm going through hand positions that I'm talking through and he's...

Speaker 16 He's sharing with me anecdotes about massage and teaching me, teaching me things. Oh, if you

Speaker 16 massage the abdomen in a clockwise clockwise way that enhances digestion. And he starts giving me all these other tips.
And then, and then at one point,

Speaker 16 the sexual jokes start.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 the joke he made was:

Speaker 16 you know, in other countries, you know, it's not unheard of.

Speaker 16 You know, you could have not just one masseuse, but you could have three, one at your feet, one at your, one at your head, and one in the middle. Ha ha ha.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 i i laugh

Speaker 16 and kind of giggle with him because at this point i'm really uncomfortable and he's crossed he's crossed that line

Speaker 16 um

Speaker 16 at 4 a.m this morning i was scrolling through instagram and i saw for the first time one of the images from the birthday book and i don't know if you've seen it but it's the cartoon of jeffrey empstein on a beach lounging chair with four young girls massaging him, one at his feet, one at his head, one in the middle.

Speaker 16 And I,

Speaker 16 as someone that has gone through a tremendous amount of trauma therapy the last seven years,

Speaker 16 I don't, I get triggered, but it's been a while since I felt a really deep trigger. I mean, I saw that image, and at 4 a.m., it took me right back

Speaker 16 to what happened next

Speaker 16 of him

Speaker 17 raping me.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 I want people to hear

Speaker 16 and understand

Speaker 16 how deeply this affects us for a long time, because it's not just happening in the moment. Trauma isn't the moment.

Speaker 16 It affects our bodies, our nervous system, our brains.

Speaker 16 It's pervasive through every area of our life afterwards.

Speaker 16 Can be.

Speaker 16 And seeing that picture today just brought me right back to that moment. So it's been a really rough day.

Speaker 16 I'll stop there because that's already a lot, I know.

Speaker 15 I don't want you to stop, but I guess I want to ask you about the book and about the fact that it was a joke to Jeffrey Epstein and his friends

Speaker 15 to have the very act of rape that you endured become fodder for something that was so trivial to him that in his circle, it was part of a birthday book.

Speaker 16 It was part of a birthday book. I mean, the joke he told me in 1991 was a pattern of behavior that was clearly depicted in that 2003 cartoon.

Speaker 16 And I think the gut-wrenching part of it for me that sat with me all day is that everyone around Jeffrey Epstein co-signed that behavior. Everyone, including Delaine Maxwell, it was acceptable.

Speaker 16 It was laughed at, but it was actually celebrated in this book by everyone that signed it, that everyone added a letter to, that every single person that saw it,

Speaker 16 how it was put together by Ghelaine Maxwell. And

Speaker 16 it feels like a level of humiliation hit me today

Speaker 16 that maybe

Speaker 16 I hadn't

Speaker 16 allowed myself to feel that literally all of these powerful men and women were looking at us as toys and as jokes and as playthings

Speaker 16 and didn't see fit to tell anyone or try to stop it in 2003.

Speaker 15 Does the lack of transparency today,

Speaker 15 what impact does that have on

Speaker 15 the trauma? And trauma, as you've explained it, is not on a time continuum. I mean, trauma is an injury that stops time, right?

Speaker 15 And so,

Speaker 15 what is the continued sense that this is being covered up? That this book was so forcefully denied by Donald Trump that he sued the news organization for defamation.

Speaker 15 What does that ongoing denial of its existence and the existence of this levity around issues like rape and

Speaker 15 child sex trafficking due to those who've been traumatized by Epstein and Maxwell.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I have a couple of things to say about that. And one is that I feel like this administration is normalizing the desensitization of sexual assault and almost the decriminalizing of it.

Speaker 16 He actually said that about domestic violence.

Speaker 19 They said crime's down 87%. They said, no, no, no, it's more than 87%.

Speaker 19 Virtually nothing. And

Speaker 19 much lesser things, things that take place in the home, they call crime. You know, they'll do anything they can to find something.

Speaker 19 If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime, see? So now I can't claim 100%.

Speaker 16 How silly it is to

Speaker 16 criminalize this little

Speaker 16 uncomfortable banter between a husband and wife and

Speaker 16 ignore the pain of people like Epstein survivors and Maxwell survivors. I want to say one more thing, too.
I think that's really important,

Speaker 16 especially because this is also part of what my mission is, is discussing how this trauma is not an event.

Speaker 16 Peter Levine has a quote that says, trauma isn't the event, it's the absence of an empathetic witness. And when it is an absence of an empathetic witness, imagine how the delays feel.

Speaker 16 The delays, the constant disregard, the lack of acknowledging. Like Caroline Levin couldn't even acknowledge the words Epstein survivors.

Speaker 16 She didn't even, couldn't even acknowledge saying us as a group of women asking for this change to happen, for this transparency, for the negligence, the systemic failures. And

Speaker 16 I know I'm not just here just for me.

Speaker 16 I'm here. for what happened in the past and I'm here to say we cannot let this happen again, continue to happen.
Something has to change.

Speaker 16 And that feels painful, that there's not even a desire to change something.

Speaker 16 There's not even a desire to acknowledge that this happened to the point where

Speaker 16 they want to do something different.

Speaker 16 That's painful.

Speaker 18 Jess, I just want to first acknowledge you. I know how powerful that is and how meaningful that is for you to explain all of that and how helpful it is.

Speaker 18 And from my perspective, as an attorney for survivors, what I see over and over is when there's a failure of accountability, when there's a failure, there's an institutional betrayal, which is what we have here.

Speaker 18 The institutions fail the survivors. Don't pay attention to them, ignore them, or dismiss them, which is basically what's been going on for 30 years.

Speaker 18 That is when the trauma remains.

Speaker 18 In 1996, Maria Farmer came forward, went to the FBI, told the FBI that she had been sexually assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell, and she said that they were engaged in some kind of sex trafficking ring.

Speaker 18 And what did the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation do? Absolutely nothing, which created one of the largest failures of law enforcement in U.S. history.
It's gone on for three decades.

Speaker 18 And over a thousand women could have been spared if only the government had listened.

Speaker 18 This failure to listen then, and again in 2006, when Maria went again and told them again, as did many other survivors, is what really keeps this trauma going.

Speaker 18 And it underscores the importance of accountability, the critical importance of accountability. And that's what's really lacking here.

Speaker 15 It's so obvious now, right, that it's a failure. But what creates the conditions where law enforcement ignores women?

Speaker 10 We don't know.

Speaker 18 We've been asking for the records for the longest time, by the way. We've been asking through the Freedom of Information Act, and we now have a lawsuit going to try to understand why they failed her.

Speaker 18 Why did they ignore her? Was there some special arrangement with Jeffrey Epstein?

Speaker 18 Was he involved, for example, and I don't know if this is so, was he providing information in connection with the prosecution and ultimate conviction of Stephen Hoffenberg in connection with the largest, then largest Ponzi scheme in U.S.

Speaker 18 history of $450 million? Was he helping with that? So the government just closed their eyes and said, well, he's helping us in some other way.

Speaker 18 And was it something about that this was just not taken seriously? This was dismissed. This is objectification.

Speaker 18 This is,

Speaker 18 doesn't matter. It's not important enough to pay attention to.

Speaker 15 We are going to take a quick break right here when we come back. Much more with Jeffrey Epstein survivor and advocate, Jess Michaels, and her lawyer Jennifer Freeman stay right here

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Speaker 15 Well, Jennifer, let me ask you then,

Speaker 15 as a lawyer, does this moment feel different?

Speaker 18 Not yet. It feels like there are the elements of feeling different, and I have hope.

Speaker 18 I really do, because part of what that memorandum that the FBI and the Department of Justice issued when this whole thing started, when they said there's nothing to see here, see no evils, whatever.

Speaker 17 Yeah. See no evil.
I want to hear no evil to you. Right.

Speaker 18 Nothing there. No, no lists, no nothing.
We're going to close the book.

Speaker 18 They also said that they acknowledge that one of their highest priority was protecting children from exploitation and some kind of sexual. assault and trauma.
So they did acknowledge that,

Speaker 18 but I don't yet see the actions that are going to back that up.

Speaker 18 But with people like Jess talking and talking and talking, which is what happened last week, we had a very large group of survivors getting together, many of them for the first time, some of them coming forward for the first time and making sure that people saw the extent of this.

Speaker 23 This did not just happen to underage girls in Florida. In New York City, hundreds of young, ambitious women were abused by him.

Speaker 23 Epstein was not just a serial predator, he was an international human trafficker.

Speaker 23 And many around him knew, many participated, and many profited.

Speaker 23 And yet he was protected.

Speaker 23 So I stand here today for every woman who has been silenced, exploited, and dismissed.

Speaker 24 We are not asking for pity.

Speaker 23 We are here demanding accountability. And I'm demanding justice.

Speaker 18 And that's just, that's just 30, 40 women. That's not a thousand.

Speaker 18 But even those women who are willing to come forward or willing to speak or willing to tell their stories, and it's remarkably similar over and over again.

Speaker 15 Jess, I want to ask you what it has been like to find community with other survivors. Has it been part of the healing or has it been re-traumatizing or a little bit of both?

Speaker 16 For me, it was extremely healing.

Speaker 16 And it felt very,

Speaker 16 you know, very few people can really relate to what we're going through on such a grand scale. You know, and I had only really ever talked on my own through a camera like this.

Speaker 16 I had not been a part of any of the things that happened in the past back in 2019, back when Julie Kay Brown did her Perversion of Justice article.

Speaker 16 I had not been part of the documentary, whereas a lot of survivors had. So when we were all meeting, a lot of them all knew each other.
And I was worried I was going to feel left out.

Speaker 16 And I, you know, and I'm 1991. I'm a very different generation.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I am one of the early,

Speaker 16 as far as I know, I'm the earliest publicly known survivor. I'm not the earliest survivor.
There are other survivors, but as far as I know, I'm the earliest publicly known survivor.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 I didn't know how they would react to me. And

Speaker 16 everyone

Speaker 16 was warm and had this level of hope together. And we were really feeding off of each other and being inspired by each other and feeling the strength of us as a collective.

Speaker 16 So it was less kumbaya, which seems calm, and more like just

Speaker 16 powerful circle of fire.

Speaker 16 It felt very bonding. It felt very safe, these women.
And

Speaker 16 I think I said it on the NBC interview, like, we're not children anymore.

Speaker 16 We're not young women. I'm not a 22-year-old anymore.
They aren't young girls anymore. We're coming back here in a way that is as adult women now who are just done

Speaker 16 and

Speaker 16 really fighting together.

Speaker 18 These women are a force. They're a force to get.

Speaker 15 I watched it and it was, it felt, it read very fierce.

Speaker 26 What is the message that we are sending to survivors of sexual violence about coming forward?

Speaker 26 Yes. Yes.
And how far back are we going to take ourselves as a nation if we don't give this the attention and scrutiny that it deserves? Regardless of who is involved, this was a crime.

Speaker 15 You know, I've covered Donald Trump for nine years, and there's one thing that doesn't work, and that's fear. And there was no fear in any woman that spoke.

Speaker 15 They told stories of being stalked and threatened, but together there was a fierceness.

Speaker 15 And I wonder, Jess, if you're optimistic that that fierceness is the variable that's changing the politics around releasing the files.

Speaker 16 I think we have fed off of each other's speaking out and that that has led to more speaking out, which has led to hope, which has led to more empowerment.

Speaker 16 And I think it is becoming this snowball effect that is not going to stop until we get accountability, truth, justice. We are part of the conversation.

Speaker 16 And that is what I think is also really fueling us is the fact that we were so blatantly left out.

Speaker 16 And so as now, these women, we're saying, you're not leaving us out of the conversation again. And that

Speaker 16 feels healing. It healed parts of me I didn't know

Speaker 16 needed healing.

Speaker 15 When you saw that Jeffrey Epstein had, I mean, did you follow efforts to hold him accountable? I mean, like, how large did Jeffrey Epstein loom in your life?

Speaker 16 He, he didn't.

Speaker 16 He didn't loom in my life. And this is, I think, an important aspect of trauma for people to understand too.
For me, I didn't relive the, I didn't have visual flashbacks.

Speaker 17 I didn't have

Speaker 16 thoughts of him. I didn't even remember his name until I saw Julie K.

Speaker 17 Brown's article.

Speaker 16 But what I would relive

Speaker 16 was how helpless I felt in that moment. I share that I froze.
That is part of my advocacy is talking about the freeze trauma response and how that left me feeling

Speaker 16 stupid.

Speaker 16 a lost sense of who I thought I was as that really competent and capable and confident dancer and how

Speaker 16 absolutely incapable I was of taking care of myself in that moment and not and then no longer trusting myself. That sense of loss of myself at 22 is what stuck with me.

Speaker 16 I never saw his name again, never saw his face again until Julie K. Brown's article in 2018.

Speaker 16 And so I saw his face. I was just scrolling through my phone reading the news.

Speaker 16 And when I saw his face for the first time, and I didn't remember his name, but I I saw his face and there was something about it. My body started to react before I remembered that it could be him.

Speaker 16 I started having trouble breathing. I started to sweat.
I started getting anxious. My hands started shaking.

Speaker 16 And that's when I went to go look for my day planner because I thought for sure I had written it down somewhere. And that's when I saw that it was him.

Speaker 16 And I had this equally like polar opposite reaction of being completely triggered, completely devastated, while also reading the article and recognizing it wasn't my fault. I wasn't the only one.

Speaker 16 I thought I was the only one the whole time. I thought I was the only one that he had raped.
For 27 years, I thought I was the only one.

Speaker 16 So it wasn't until 2018 until I learned that I was part of this survivor sisterhood that nobody wants to be a part of.

Speaker 15 Did you ever confront your roommate who sent you to his office and home with what happened to you?

Speaker 16 So I never saw her again. In a dancer apartment, you have people coming in and out all the time.
And I had left on a second contract to go to Tokyo to model.

Speaker 16 And when I came home, I was too scared to stay in New York. Within 24 hours, I had moved out of that apartment.
I left New York. And it, and

Speaker 16 this was also the bizarre thing about it. Why didn't I think to talk to her after? And I thought she had a good experience with him.

Speaker 16 I thought this did not happen to her.

Speaker 15 So

Speaker 16 I never reached out to her. What I started to realize years later was, hey, wait a minute, she never reached out to me either.
I left and she never reached out to me again.

Speaker 16 I found out, you know, later that she moved in with a friend and this girl had stayed working for him for a long time.

Speaker 15 What is your sense of the blast radius of trauma? I mean, how can someone outside

Speaker 15 of all of the abuse and outside of all of the private suffering of people like yourself, you know, that you're raped in 91 and until Julie Kay Brown's articles come out, I think. So, sort of pre

Speaker 15 Maxwell's

Speaker 15 prosecution and the attempts to hold him accountable in New York. How would you try to quantify just sort of the scope of trauma and damage that he and Maxwell have done?

Speaker 16 That's a great question.

Speaker 16 I'm going to start where I know for me.

Speaker 16 Within

Speaker 16 three months,

Speaker 16 I

Speaker 16 had so much anxiety and insomnia and depression, I had to leave New York. I couldn't, so I lost my career trajectory.

Speaker 16 Within six months, I,

Speaker 16 because my food wasn't digesting, I didn't have an eating disorder, but my food wasn't digesting at all. And I could pull a pair of size zero jeans down off of my hips without unbuttoning them.

Speaker 16 When I talked to a friend at that time, what, you know, I said to her, when I finally shared with her what happened and all that, I said, what do you remember most about me in 1991, in October, November, December of 1991?

Speaker 16 She said, I just remember that you slept a lot.

Speaker 16 So I lost my career. I lost my health, my physical health, because once you're stuck in survival mode, after decades, your organs,

Speaker 16 your systems start to break down. And that's a whole other podcast.

Speaker 16 Your relationships suffer, your relationships, your friendships, you isolate without intentionally wanting to isolate, but also not feeling safe enough to really talk to anyone, even the people you love.

Speaker 16 The CDC had a quote on damage back in 2014. The damage to a sexual assault survivor, like a lifetime, and this was conservative and

Speaker 16 like approximate, is $122,000 per person. And that was back in 2014.
That's what the damage to sexual assault does. Now times all of that

Speaker 16 by

Speaker 16 minimum a thousand.

Speaker 16 How many families, how many careers, how many relationships, how many bodies?

Speaker 16 How many survivors never came forward at all? How many survivors were like me, showed up once and then never wanted to have any part of this at all and never said anything.

Speaker 16 So I know that the FBI, I guess, has said they estimated about a thousand survivors, and I'm going to say it's probably a lot more.

Speaker 16 And that's what we know.

Speaker 15 I mean, Jess,

Speaker 15 what is justice then, in response to that? I mean, what does that even begin to look like?

Speaker 16 There are several parts to it, right? Justice is

Speaker 16 acknowledging negligence, acknowledging systemic failure, and having institutional courage to want to make change.

Speaker 16 And I think that's the part that is so frustrating is the institutional cowardice that is coming. coming out now and has and has been.

Speaker 16 Institutional cowardice has been going on for decades around sexual assault and trafficking. Actions speak louder than words.
So

Speaker 16 it is changing policies. You know, in 1991, when I froze, the law said, as I understood it, it wasn't even considered rape if you didn't resist.

Speaker 16 So it's another reason why I never came forward because I had never heard of freeze. And so I blamed myself.

Speaker 16 Laws matter. The wording of laws matter in how much society believes us, in how much the people we love around us believe us, in how much self-blame and shame we carry.

Speaker 16 So I believe in policy change for me personally, I am, I am creating my own form of justice.

Speaker 16 I am trying to work outside of any legal definitions of sexual assault and under the umbrella of sexual harm and focusing on the injury that happens, like what happened to me, post-traumatic stress disorder, or like a post-traumatic stress injury, which is what I like to call because I was not disordered.

Speaker 16 Somebody injured me, and that, and words matter, right? Like, yeah, words matter.

Speaker 16 Post-traumatic stress disorder sounds like I was disordered in how I responded to this really horrific event, and that's not true.

Speaker 16 I actually responded in a really natural and normal way to a really horrific event. And so, for me, I focus on the injury.

Speaker 15 PTSD

Speaker 25 treatments are,

Speaker 15 as I understand it,

Speaker 15 a lot sort of more of a medical mystery. I mean, have you felt like you've had to advocate for your own healing sort of mentally and physically? And can you talk about that journey?

Speaker 16 Yes.

Speaker 10 So,

Speaker 16 Nicole, I am not just an Epstein survivor. I am from Newtown, Connecticut, where the Sandy Hook shooting happened.

Speaker 16 I worked for a dance studio where we lost three little girls, and I worked for one of the foundations for five years, Dylan's Wings of Change.

Speaker 16 You asked me a question in the beginning about

Speaker 16 how I have the courage to do what I'm doing. And it's because I watched these families

Speaker 16 before all this happened.

Speaker 17 I worked.

Speaker 16 for these families and I watched them turn a horrific, violent tragedy into some really incredible,

Speaker 16 life-changing, inspiring, and hopeful acts. And that's what taught me what I wanted to do, right? Like, that's what taught me.

Speaker 16 But for me to get help for post-traumatic stress disorder injury, what I found is that I needed to trust someone. And

Speaker 16 for me, I started to realize that the only reason I have gone through the amount of healing that I have is that my therapist is from Sandy Hook. She served my community.

Speaker 16 And I thought, there's nothing I'm going to be able to tell this woman that is going to be shocking for her. And I could trust her

Speaker 16 with the depth of

Speaker 16 these horrific things, and it wouldn't scare her.

Speaker 16 And so that's why I believe I have had the inordinate opportunity to heal

Speaker 16 because of that.

Speaker 15 My conversation with Jess Michaels and Jennifer Freeman continues right after the break. Don't go anywhere.

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Speaker 18 Nicole, may I turn back to what justice looks like for a moment? Justice includes accountability. Accountability includes

Speaker 18 releasing the records, releasing the files, finding out what happened. There were so many violations of mandatory FBI and U.S.
Attorney's Office policies. Why were they violated?

Speaker 20 Why were they ignored?

Speaker 18 It's important for us to understand this, to understand the depth of this negligence, so that we can not do it again.

Speaker 16 Yes.

Speaker 18 Without going through this process, there's really no way to ensure that. And because remember, certainly there were all kinds of survivors, and some of them were children,

Speaker 18 12, 13, 14 years old. And in our culture, accountability, especially when the government continues to fail to do their job, that includes bringing a lawsuit, which was what we've done.

Speaker 18 We've brought a lawsuit on behalf of Maria Farmer, who was the whistleblower. And now we are starting to bring claims on behalf of Jess and all the other clients.

Speaker 18 And I just want to make sure everyone understands that every survivor can participate in this and it gives them the opportunity to come forward and they could even come forward anonymously under a pseudonym to at least take the steps.

Speaker 18 They don't have to do it, but take a look at it and see if that can help you move yourself forward in your healing journey, because I think it can. And getting those records is critical.

Speaker 18 Release the files. Release Maria's files.

Speaker 20 Yes. By the way,

Speaker 18 I asked for Maria's files under a simple FOIA request, Freedom of Information Act. Standard stuff, shouldn't be difficult.
Her records, these are belong to her. There's no privacy concerns about her.

Speaker 18 And what did they do? They wrote me a letter back and they said, this was wrote back in like January of this, earlier this year.

Speaker 18 And they wrote back and they said, they were going to get back to me by November 2027.

Speaker 18 Almost three years

Speaker 18 to get to thinking about whether they're going to show me Maria's own records. So this is what we're facing.

Speaker 15 Well, and what's amazing is I understand from news reports that they put a thousand agents on the files. So there's no denial that the files exist.

Speaker 15 They put a thousand agents on the files to go through and look for Trump's name. Multiple news organizations have reported that they told him his name's in the files.

Speaker 15 So it's there's some questions that aren't knowable. This isn't one of them.
I mean, Jennifer, can you just take me through your theory of the case, your theory of this big government cover-up?

Speaker 15 What is in those files?

Speaker 18 There should be information about a lot of allegations involving other men, some of which are already public. So this notion that there's nobody to prosecute, there's no one to look at.

Speaker 18 And one of the other big issues that I think are really important, and it's the classic follow the money. How did Epstein become so wealthy?

Speaker 18 Where did he get all that money? You know, for example, he worked closely with this

Speaker 18 Les Wexner for a decade, three years.

Speaker 18 wound up with his then $20 million townhouse, wound up with the power of attorney over all of his finances. How did that happen? What happened as a result of that?

Speaker 18 Where was this, this close relationship, such a close relationship?

Speaker 18 We need to know those kinds of things. It's important to understand.
And these files, these records should reveal a lot of that.

Speaker 15 Jess, let me ask you about the first thing you talked about, that you were raped by Jeffrey Epstein and you stayed quiet because you felt ashamed, because you had,

Speaker 15 you judged yourself or you felt society would judge how you reacted as a victim.

Speaker 15 How do you begin to turn the culture so that after a crime of sexual violence is carried out by a powerful man against an innocent woman, the woman never feels any shame, the man does.

Speaker 15 And the society judges the rapist, the criminal, not the victim, the woman.

Speaker 16 I think that's a great question. And I think that that is actually a really important distinction that has to start happening.

Speaker 16 And I think the Me Too movement was incredibly successful at making us aware that we weren't alone.

Speaker 16 The place where I feel like we're at now is we're all saying me too, and now what's next?

Speaker 16 Because that's not, we don't know what to do next. And the people around us don't know what to do next.

Speaker 16 And that's where I believe the part of my mission comes in that I'm trying to do is to really frame sexual assault.

Speaker 16 as an injury first that demands care before it is that there's an interrogation or investigation because what automatically happens, even as I saw it, I had a viral TikTok, 3.1 million views.

Speaker 16 Yay, great. And I cannot tell you how many comments of proof, proof, proof.
And I have to keep saying, this TikTok is about trauma. It is not about the justice system.

Speaker 16 There's not a recognition of the injury that we are living with, that the injury that Maria has been living with since 1996, the injury that we are walking around in is completely re-traumatized every time things like a birthday book with a cartoon come up.

Speaker 16 So until people can start to recognize and learn more about that injury, I think we're going to struggle in

Speaker 16 getting any justice. And I just want to add something to what Jennifer was saying.
In my social media comments, everybody is waiting for survivors. to put together their lawsuit.
And I said we are.

Speaker 16 You know, I think not enough people are hearing about the fact that we are trying to pursue a sense of justice and accountability for all that we have lost and to protect future generations.

Speaker 18 Well, you know, Nicole, you make an interesting point because civil litigation has been a big driver on achieving accountability also,

Speaker 18 especially around sexual assault, child pornography, some kind of sexual exploitation. It's often either preceding criminal prosecution or alongside it.

Speaker 18 If you look at what happened with Jeffrey Epstein, it wasn't until the civil lawsuit started pushing that further investigation was done, along with very important media work, investigatory journalism by Julie Brown and others.

Speaker 15 Can I ask both of you about the profile of a man like Jeffrey Epstein who would

Speaker 15 rape a 22-year-old dancer and then traffic in underage girls. I feel like we don't capture the monstrous nature of that.
And I don't think this is an issue for women to wrestle with.

Speaker 15 I think any father of a daughter should be wrestling with it as many hours of the day as I am. I mean, what kind of monster,

Speaker 15 what kind of monstrosity is a child sex trafficking ring?

Speaker 16 So this is. What I will tell you when I shared my story with someone that was a criminal behavioral analyst, and I was describing how

Speaker 16 when he opened that drawer with the books, I said, there were a dozen of that same book. And should you realize that if there were already a dozen of those books sitting there in 1991,

Speaker 16 you were no match for him at 22 years old. You are no match for the level of manipulation.
The other thing I will tell you is that when he assaulted me, there is no way he didn't know I was scared.

Speaker 16 There's no way that he didn't know that I was frozen and had gone numb, and

Speaker 16 it would be impossible for him to not know. So, I think there is a characteristic of this type of person that it's

Speaker 16 not just about sex, it's about domination and it's about fear and it's about control.

Speaker 16 And that's why I think one of the big disconnects with a lot of men talking about this issue right now is they think it's just, oh, you just had a bad hookup.

Speaker 16 No, it's not a bad hookup when I freeze and go mute and dissociate and and can't feel my body when I leave confused and get on the subway going the wrong way and I'm so traumatized by the violation that it sticks with me for for decades I think that there's a real disconnect in in in that concept of no it's not just a bad hookup or a bad sexual experience it was unwanted it was not consented and it was stolen

Speaker 15 i guess just the last thing i want to ask you about are the

Speaker 15 people who will make the decisions right now.

Speaker 15 Donald Trump, Todd Blanche, his deputy attorney general, who seemed to take an unprecedented interest in this case by going down and interviewing Delaine Maxwell himself, Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House.

Speaker 15 Tom Massey, a Republican who's sort of breaking ranks.

Speaker 15 I mean, when you look at the political actors and you look at the lack of transparency, what are your thoughts about our leaders and our politics?

Speaker 16 I think it was something actually that you said early in this interview. I really think it's going to have to be the women who stand up for us.
I think we are going to need

Speaker 16 the women in power to stand up to the men in power right now.

Speaker 15 Are you hopeful that they will?

Speaker 16 I think we're seeing some incredible women. step up and stand with us and unexpected women.

Speaker 17 Unexpected for sure.

Speaker 13 And

Speaker 16 I'm here for it, you know, I think that I've heard other people say, well, we can't, you know, where were they when we were talking out before about harm? And I don't, I don't care. You're with that.

Speaker 16 If you're with us now, then

Speaker 16 we may not agree on everything, but we agree on this. And so I am begging, begging these women that are

Speaker 16 that one step away from the people that are the decision makers, that

Speaker 16 they will appeal for us, that they will advocate for us in a powerful way to make a difference. I think that if you were to ask me, you know, what demographic do I think can make the most difference?

Speaker 16 I think moms, moms, moms understand this. Moms are hurting with us.
And I don't, it doesn't matter what political party they are.

Speaker 16 This is a nonpartisan issue when you're talking about child sex trafficking and sexual assault, because I know the stats say one in three, but I actually think it's like three in four women that this happens to.

Speaker 16 I know more women that have been sexually assaulted than haven't. And so

Speaker 16 I'm asking for every woman in the lives of the men that are making these decisions to please stand with us and speak up for us and help them understand why this is important, not just for us, but for our children.

Speaker 18 And these women are not going away. These women are motivated and they're smart and they care deeply about this.
And this is their time to come forward and they're here and they're not going anywhere.

Speaker 16 Exactly.

Speaker 15 Jess, you are, you're a force. You're a force for good in

Speaker 15 a situation. I cannot imagine having the courage or the presence of mind to do the same thing.
You're an inspiration. So thank you so much, Jess and Jennifer, for being here.

Speaker 15 Thank you for this conversation. Thank you.

Speaker 18 Thank you. It was very helpful.
Yeah. Really important.

Speaker 7 Thank you.

Speaker 18 Thanks, Nicole.

Speaker 15 Thank you so much for listening to The Best People. All episodes of this podcast are also available on YouTube.
Visit msnow slash the best people to watch.

Speaker 15 The best people is produced by Vicki Vergelina and senior producer Lisa Ferry with production support from Ann Gimbel. Our audio engineers are Bob Mallory and Greg Devons II.

Speaker 15 Katie Lau is our senior manager of audio production. Pat Berkey is the senior executive producer of Deadline White House.
Brad Gold is the executive producer of Content Strategy.

Speaker 15 Aisha Turner is the executive producer of audio. And Madeline Herringer is senior vice president in charge of audio, digital, and long form.

Speaker 15 Search for the best people wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to follow the series.

Speaker 3 Now's the time to start your next adventure behind the wheel of an exciting new Toyota hybrid.

Speaker 4 With the largest lineup of hybrid, plug-in, hybrid, and electrified vehicles to choose from, Toyota has the one for you.

Speaker 6 Every new Toyota hybrid comes with Toyota Care two-year complementary scheduled maintenance, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Speaker 10 Visit your local Toyota dealer today, Toyota.

Speaker 12 Let's go places.

Speaker 13 See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.