Carole Radziwill found herself in the hot seat on The Real Housewives of New York City after her costars questioned her about her past friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell and why her name appeared in the Epstein files.
During the Tuesday, October 13 episode, the RHONY women were on newbie Erika Hammond’s private island when the conversation turned serious.
“If you Google me right now, it says that my name is in the Epstein file,” Carole told the group.
Carole’s past connection to Ghislaine resurfaced earlier this year after documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein were unsealed. Epstein was indicted in 2019 on sex trafficking charges involving minors and died in custody that same year while awaiting trial. Ghislaine was later convicted of child sex trafficking in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Carole has insisted that she never knew Jeffrey Epstein and that Ghislaine never spoke to her about him.
When Daisy Toye and Hailey Glassman were first speaking with Carole, she tried to explain that her connection to Ghislaine was not as deep as people online have made it seem.
The reason the topic has followed Carole is because she and Ghislaine did have a social friendship in the early 2000s. Carole has said they met through mutual friends in New York, moved in similar high-society circles and would see each other at parties, dinners and major events. Carole also said Ghislaine photographed the author photo for her 2007 memoir, What Remains, which is one of the reasons fans have questioned just how close they were.
There were also old personal emails between Carole and Ghislaine from 2004 and 2005 that appeared in the Epstein-related document releases, adding more fuel to the conversation. Carole has described those emails as casual exchanges from a social friendship, not proof that Ghislaine was part of her inner circle.
Carole explained on the episode that, in the early 2000s, Ghislaine was often present in New York social circles.
“In the early 2000s, it would be strange if you went out to a really big event in New York and Ghislaine wasn’t there,” Carole said in a confessional.
But Carole maintained that Ghislaine was never one of her closest friends.
Sai De Silva was not satisfied with that explanation and began pressing Carole about whether she and Ghislaine were “really good friends.”
“If you read the press, we were,” Carole said. “But she was never one of my close friends.”
Carole explained that she was “friendly” with Ghislaine and that they shared mutual friends. She also described Ghislaine as “a social climber” who was attracted to money and power.
Sai continued questioning Carole about how they met and how the friendship ended. Carole said it was like many casual friendships that were never that deep.
“You know, it’s like any friendship that sort of wasn’t that deep,” Carole said. “We just kind of drifted apart.”
Still, Sai pushed back, explaining that the Epstein scandal “pains me to my stomach,” especially as the mother of a teenage daughter.
Carole appeared frustrated by the direction of the conversation, saying in a confessional that there is a difference between curiosity and accusation.
“I get that people would be curious about it,” Carole said. “But there’s a fine line between curiosity and accusation.”
Carole also questioned why Sai was bringing her daughter into it.
“Why are you using your daughter as a shield?” Carole said. “And then also a sword to grill me with questions?”
Carole then argued that the bigger conversation should be about why the men connected to Epstein were not more thoroughly investigated.
According to Carole, “This is not what we should be talking about.”
The conversation then took an emotional turn when Carole revealed that she had been sexually assaulted in college.
“Like a lot of young girls, I had a situation where I was sexually assaulted in college,” Carole said. “So I was sensitive to that.”
Carole explained that the alleged assault involved a college professor.
“And believe me, this professor was celebrated,” she said. “This professor had lots of friends who didn’t know that he was assaulting young students.”
Carole said that experience is part of why the conversation was painful for her.
“It does shake me to think that I knew someone and would even, like, call her a friend, who then 20 years later, turned out to be a monster,” Carole said.
Daisy became emotional after watching Carole be questioned and felt that Sai had gone too far.
“Poor Carole that she has to bring up such a disgusting, painful time in her life, just to justify herself to Sai,” Daisy said in a confessional. “I know Sai is very blunt, but nobody should be treated like this. I didn’t know we had a f***ing federal prosecutor on this trip.”
The moment quickly became one of the most uncomfortable scenes of the trip. Carole tried to explain that she knew Ghislaine socially through New York circles years before Ghislaine’s crimes became public, while Sai continued pressing her on whether their relationship was closer than Carole was admitting.
