Documentarian Katherine Haywood spent 18 months on “Who is Ghislaine Maxwell?”
She’s still not sure she knows the answer.
“She’s a multifaceted woman with lots of different sides to her, which is what humans are. No one is a total monster and no one is a total saint,” Haywood told the Daily News on Monday, a day before Maxwell was sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court on sex trafficking charges.
“She falls on the former line unfortunately, but who she is, is a real myth. She’s a vulnerable woman but one that also has such power and such control. There’s a lot of contradictions in her. … She could be absolutely charming and absolutely terrifying. You can see her vulnerabilities, but then she is so dominating and so powerful. She has so many abilities, but then used them for such terrible use.”
The three-part docuseries, the first episode of which premiered last week on Starz, paints the disgraced socialite through those who knew her at every stage of her life. Eventually, she will become Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator who trafficked underage girls for him to sexually abuse. But before Jeffrey and Ghislaine, there was just Ghislaine.
College classmates and tutors, the family photographer, even the aunt of a former boyfriend tell their own versions of Maxwell: a smart student who didn’t do great on tests but aced the party scene. She knew who to cozy up to, who to schmooze, who to draw in with her charm and grace. She looked the part and played the part, even if she stood out as new money in the old money world of the English elite.
“I realized that there is a difference between the British and the American class system,” Haywood, the London-born filmmaker, told The News. “In America, it’s more around money and visibility and a bit more about effort and attainment. In the U.K., if you’re born into a certain class, you do get a bit of a free pass for quite a while; not forever, and Ghislaine has definitely fallen, but there’s a lot of help from where you’re born and what class you’re born into.”
Maxwell had the prestige even when she didn’t have the money to back it up when her world came crashing down in the early ‘90s. In 1991, shortly after buying the Daily News, her father, media mogul Robert Maxwell, fell to his death off his yacht, named the Lady Ghislaine. After his death, the Maxwell finances fell apart as investigations revealed that he had stolen millions of pounds from the pension funds of his own companies.
Maxwell had been a daddy’s girl, the youngest daughter who would perch herself on his knee and bat her eyelashes and ask for the world. In the telling of family friends and employees, he was cruel and withholding, but little Ghislaine had been the apple of his eye.
“She didn’t really develop her own personality because her father was so dominant and she looked up to him so much. When he died, she was a bit of a shell and didn’t really know what she was, who she was, what she was going to do,” Haywood said.
“I don’t think she was looking to Epstein to be a father figure but just to be a presence to fill that gap that was suddenly gone. She didn’t have her own internal power and confidence to just live her own life.”
As the documentary goes on, Maxwell’s power grows. She makes friends in higher places and, with Epstein’s money and little black book, finds young women, often underage, who fall under their spell.
Some of the victims interviewed in “Who is Ghislaine Maxwell?” including Maria Farmer, Gretchen Rhodes and Teresa Helm, who still refer to her as “Ms. Maxwell,” while Epstein just gets “Jeffrey.” Amid questions of the power dynamic in that relationship, it’s a small but telling sign.
“People did quite like Epstein until he was totally horrible and abused them. He was really, really nice and charming and lovely. Ghislaine also was very charming but only to certain people …,” Haywood told The News.
“When it was a victim or a survivor, she didn’t really bother. She thought she could get them without being nice.”
And for decades, it worked; Epstein’s 2006 arrest was barely a blip on his radar. In 2019, he was arrested again.
Maxwell went into hiding until her July 2020 arrest in New Hampshire. On Dec. 29, she was found guilty of five of the six sex trafficking-related counts and she was acquitted on one count of enticing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, and on Tuesday she was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
“Ghislaine and Epstein made [the victims] feel like they were to blame, like it was their fault that all this was happening, that something must be wrong with them for this to happen to them,” Haywood said.
“That’s a very powerful feeling of shame that came through for all of the victims. I think, by speaking out, they’re reclaiming their power and reclaiming their identity as positive, strong, capable women rather than people they should be ashamed to be.”
The first episode of “Who is Ghislaine Maxwell?” is available on the Starz app. The second episode will hit the app Friday and air on Starz Sunday at 9 p.m. ET. The third episode will premiere on the app on July 8 and on Starz on July 10 at 9 p.m.
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