When interior designer Clare Hazell married Arthur Edward Guinness, Earl of Iveagh, she stepped into Britain’s aristocracy and became custodian of one of the country’s grandest estates. Her rise from a modest upbringing in Reading to the upper ranks of the nobility appeared to be a modern fairy tale. But new reporting suggests the story carried a hidden and troubling past.
A months-long investigation by The Mail on Sunday says Hazell, later Countess of Iveagh, had significant contact with Jeffrey Epstein before her marriage. Newly released documents from the so-called Epstein Files indicate that the UK’s National Crime Agency informed the FBI in 2020 that she was “allegedly a close contact of Epstein”. Flight records cited in the documents show she travelled on Epstein’s private jet around 40 times over four years.
