A female agent at the top of the modeling industry had a close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and introduced him to women from the agency’s roster, according to an investigation by The Guardian.

Until last November, Faith Kates ran modeling and talent agency Next Management, which has represented the likes of Alexa Chung, Milla Jovovich and Billie Eilish. She held this position for decades as the founder of the company. Kates quietly stepped down just weeks before the release of the first major documents about Epstein, saying she wanted to focus on charity work.

Links between Kates and Epstein have been reported before, but analysis of documents released by the United States Department of Justice show a much deeper relationship than previously thought, with emails showing Kates receiving business advice from Epstein and discussing multimillion-dollar loans.

Kates appears to have met regularly. Epstein, including on one occasion when she was with Prince Andrew at a New York store in December 2010, during the week of Andrew’s now infamous visit to the city to allegedly end his friendship with the financier.

Kates, 68, offered support and “unconditional friendship” to Epstein after he was first convicted in 2009 of soliciting prostitution of a minor. She continued to send him friendly emails in the weeks before his arrest in 2019.

More disturbingly, during their nearly 40-year relationship, Kates appears to have linked some of her models to Epstein, raising serious questions about her role as she was responsible for the careers, and well-being, of thousands of young women.

These revelations led to Next, which until now had not commented on its founder’s relationship with Epstein, distanced itself completely from it. In a statement to The Guardian, a spokesperson said the company is working to sever any legal ties to Kates and that her relationship with Epstein “was completely unknown to Next executives”.

A spokesperson for Kates said she had “never put a model at risk by sending them on inappropriate dates”, adding: “Epstein was a brilliant manipulator. The people around him only knew what he wanted them to do.” knew.”

There are more than 5,000 mentions of Faith Kates on file. Although some are repetitive, the emails between her and Jeffrey Epstein are frequent. The messages often have a very friendly tone, with Kates regularly telling Epstein what a good friend he was, even writing on one occasion, “I really love you like a brother.”

Epstein’s interest in the modeling industry is also evident in their conversations, with his diary showing several scheduled meetings with Kates at the company’s New York offices during the 2010s.

According to interviews, Kates had begun connecting Epstein with models of agency many years ago. Since the 1990s, the industry had developed the practice of introducing models to businessmen outside the fashion world. Kates was particularly good at this and organized agency dinners where rich men met young women from her list.

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Source: prizrenpost