Carole Radziwill is clarifying her connections to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell after her name appeared in the Epstein files.
“Imagine knowing someone and even being friendly with them and then they turn out to be, like, a monster,” Radziwill, 62, said of Maxwell, 64, in an interview with The New York Times published on Thursday, March 26.
Emails between Radziwill and Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of trafficking minors for Epstein and sentenced to 20 years in prison, were included in the recently-released Epstein files. One exchange saw Maxwell call Radziwill the “most wonderful, the most beautiful, the smartest, the best, the brightest.”
Radziwill said on Thursday that she and Maxwell were friends for about “five to six years” in the early 2000s.
“The thing about her that made it easy for me to spend any time with her at all was that she was very intelligent, she was educated,” the Real Housewives of New York City star explained. “If you lined up 10 women and you asked, like, pick the woman who would be involved in an international sex trafficking ring, it would not be her.”
As for her connection to Epstein, who died in prison at age 66 in 2019 while awaiting trial for child sex trafficking charges, Radziwill said she once saw the financier at a party hosted by Maxwell. However, Radziwill said that Maxwell never spoke to her about Epstein.
“I never knew Jeffrey Epstein,” she noted.
Luxury Handbag Shopping reached out to Maxwell’s attorney for comment.
In addition to crossing paths with Epstein as a result of her friendship with Maxwell, Radizwill said the former socialite introduced her to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly known as Prince Andrew) for her “Lunch Date” column in Glamour.
Mountbatten-Windsor, 66, was stripped of his royal title in October 2025 amid scrutiny over his connection to Epstein. He was later arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in office, where he allegedly passed confidential British government information to Epstein. The former royal was released from police custody hours after his arrest and has denied wrongdoing regarding his association with Epstein.
Earlier this year, Ghislaine’s brother, Ian Maxwell, criticized the royal family for not supporting Mountbatten-Windsor.
“There [Andrew] is, kicked out of his home, completely isolated and, unlike Ghislaine, he doesn’t even have a supportive family; even his daughters are at sixes and sevens about what to do,” Ian, 70, told The Telegraph in February. “You have to note [Andrew] hasn’t been charged with any sort of sexual offense. And the police will have looked really hard for evidence. Look, he’s a single man, and what he did or didn’t do with various women was sleazy, humiliating for him and embarrassing for the royals.”
Ian also defended his sister, claiming she was “a scapegoat for the dreadful crimes perpetrated by Jeffrey Epstein.”
“My sister is the fall guy,” he insisted. “Somebody had to pay the price for what Epstein did and so the government and the media chose her. I genuinely believe that if Epstein were alive he would be incarcerated and she would be free. Her trial wasn’t fair and her conviction isn’t safe. Ghislaine has done nothing wrong and the length of her conviction is outrageous.”
