“I am a person, not a thing, in case you didn’t realise. And I am exhausted from answering the same questions, over and over. Write what you like.”

With those words, Juliette Bryant ended our Zoom interview. Until then, the conversation had flowed – a dialogue, not an interrogation. It demanded care: not pity, not empathy, but compassion and respect. Not the same recycled questions demanding neat answers. And not the reduction of her life to voyeurism or trauma as spectacle.

For Bryant, and for hundreds of others still entangled in the late Jeffrey Epstein’s world, the past six years have been shaped by the psychological aftershocks of one of the most notorious sexual abuse networks in modern history.

Epstein’s wealth and influence masked decades of predation. Public records identify his first known victim in 1994 – a child of just 13. With his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, he groomed underage girls and young women with promises of education, modelling or opportunity, only to subject them to systematic sexual exploitation.

When Epstein was arrested in 2019, survivors briefly glimpsed something they had long been denied: visibility. Their suffering was finally acknowledged. Accountability, consequences and answers seemed possible. Most importantly, there was hope for agency: control over how their stories would be told and how justice would be pursued. That hope was short-lived.

Epstein’s death in custody once again stripped survivors of control. In life and in death, he maintained power through silence.

A ‘shameful secret’

Bryant’s experience reflects this. Between 2002 and 2004, she endured abuse she kept secret for 15 years, internalising the violation of both body and identity. “I was carrying this shameful secret and pretending I was okay,” she says. “For years I suffered panic attacks and eating disorders. I was punishing myself for being such an idiot. My time with Epstein killed my true self.”

Like many survivors, Bryant has lived with a volatile mix of anger, shame, guilt and fear – including the terror that she might again be drawn back into Epstein’s orbit. She says he continued making contact even in the months before his death, requesting naked images.

In 2022, Bryant confronted one of the architects of this abuse through a written victim impact statement submitted for Maxwell’s sentencing. Her statement was read to Judge Alison J Nathan of the Southern District of New York for the official court record: “Simply put, Ghislaine Maxwell is a monster. Ever since she and Jeffrey Epstein got their hands on me, I have never felt okay. Thinking about them still gives me frequent panic attacks and night terrors. All the victims, including myself, are eternally grateful for everyone that has helped expose these criminals. I appreciate Your Honor imposing the maximum sentence available.”

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