Jeffrey Epstein “used the modeling industry as a lever to try to get girls into his orbit,” Lisa Phillips tellsMs.
An Epstein survivor, Phillips met him in 2000 through an Eastern European model, who brought her to Little St. James, Epstein’s private island in the Virgin Islands, where he first assaulted her. The other model had obtained her U.S. visa through Epstein—the significance of which Phillips didn’t fully grasp until later.
Phillips describes how Epstein operated: He asked about her career, about how often she talked to her father (she told him not often), and he specifically wanted to know about her goals as a model. She told him her “big dream” was to work for Ford Models. He told her that she and the other model had to stay over on the island, then assaulted her later that night.
When Phillips got home, she claims Epstein’s assistant repeatedly pressed her to meet with him again. She refused. Months later, she says, he called to say he had arranged a meeting with his “great friend” Katie Ford, the CEO of Ford Models. Phillips met with Ford and became a model for the agency.
“He gave me the exact thing I wanted: my big, huge goal,” Phillips says. “It was a huge deal, and was wonderful, and should’ve stopped there, but it didn’t.”
She says Epstein continued to summon her to his home, where he continued to assault her, and he arranged meetings with other powerful men, some of whom she claims also assaulted her.
According to Phillips, the Ford agency itself enlisted models to attend events that were also attended by powerful men.
“Models were being sent to every charity event, every modeling party,” she says, “everything organized through Katie Ford and agents.”
She alleges these events sometimes led to assaults, and that models were also assaulted on the job, while working on photo shoots.
“It was always us younger girls and older men,” she explains. “We [felt] our bodies weren’t ours and we would just have to put up with it to keep [our] career.”
Katie Ford has not issued a public response addressing allegations linking her and Ford Models to Epstein’s network.
Looking back, Phillips says she does not blame the model who brought her to Epstein: “She did what she had to do for Jeffrey, and to stay safe. That is how it worked.”
The former models who spoke withMs. say that industry-connected abusers—including Epstein—and their enablers often used the women’s desire to launch or advance their modeling careers to groom and manipulate them.
Lara Blume McGee, an Epstein survivor who came forward publicly for the first time at a press conference on Capitol Hill in November 2025, shares how Epstein used her dreams of becoming a Victoria’s Secret model, and his close relationship with Les Wexner—then the owner of Victoria’s Secret—to groom, manipulate and abuse her.
