Survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre revealed strict dietary controls imposed during her time with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, describing how her captors monitored and manipulated what she could eat.
In her memoir, Giuffre detailed how Epstein maintained rigid control over food consumption. He subsisted on what he considered healthy options including tofu, salmon, chickpeas, and ginger, while insisting the young women around him follow similar restrictions.
She wrote: “Epstein was strictly disciplined about what he ate, subsisting on tofu, salmon, chickpeas, ginger, and other foods he deemed healthy (and insisting that the girls around him do so too).”
The dietary control extended beyond mere food choices. Epstein wanted the young women to remain thin, making pizza and beer strictly prohibited items.
Maxwell acted as enforcer of these rules, maintaining strict oversight of menus and household routines throughout Epstein’s various properties.
Giuffre described how Maxwell kept detailed manuals at each residence, specifying her preferences about everything from coffee brands to thermostat settings. The meticulous control extended to every aspect of daily life, including what the young women could consume.
The restrictions created situations where simple acts became forms of rebellion. At one point, Epstein’s personal chef Adam Perry Lang would secretly prepare forbidden foods for Giuffre.
When she finished attending to Epstein, Lang would have pizza waiting, offering her beer alongside it. These moments represented small acts of kindness in an otherwise controlled environment.
Maxwell’s enforcement of the dietary rules was particularly harsh. She monitored food intake and expected the young women to maintain specific body types that pleased Epstein. The controls were part of a broader pattern of manipulation and domination that characterized life in Epstein’s households.
Giuffre noted that Epstein’s strictness about what entered his body contrasted sharply with his lack of concern about whom he had contact with. Though he maintained rigid standards about food, avoiding anything he deemed poison, he showed no similar caution regarding the young women he exploited.
The dietary restrictions contributed to Giuffre’s development of an eating disorder. She suffered from it in her childhood but the situation got worse under Epstein’s control. She described how the constant monitoring and judgment of her body created lasting impacts on her relationship with food.
She wrote: “The eating disorder I’d developed in childhood was only encouraged under Epstein’s roof, where us girls were always on a diet.”
The restrictions were part of a system designed to maintain complete dominance over every aspect of the young women’s lives.
