Which Mar‑a‑Lago employees have given on‑the‑record interviews about Epstein and what did they state?
Executive summary
Reporting shows that a small number of people publicly tied to Mar‑a‑Lago have given on‑the‑record accounts implicating the club’s spa in contacts with Jeffrey Epstein, but most of the sources cited by major outlets are unnamed “former employees” quoted by the Wall Street Journal and reproduced in other outlets; the clearest named Mar‑a‑Lago‑linked voice is Virginia Giuffre, a former spa attendant who has spoken and testified about being recruited into Epstein’s orbit [1] [2]. Major outlets also report claims from unnamed former Mar‑a‑Lago spa workers — including an account that an 18‑year‑old returned from a house call saying Epstein pressured her — but those employees have generally not been publicly identified in the reporting [1] [3].
1. The named former attendant: Virginia Giuffre’s public account
Virginia Giuffre, who worked at Mar‑a‑Lago as a spa attendant in the 1990s, has been a named, on‑the‑record source in multiple reports and in legal testimony describing her recruitment by Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar‑a‑Lago and her subsequent abuse and trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein; media summaries of court testimony and her memoir report that Giuffre said she did not see Donald Trump participate in abuse and described Trump as “couldn’t have been friendlier” when they met, while also describing Maxwell’s recruitment role connected to Mar‑a‑Lago [1] [2].
2. Unnamed former Mar‑a‑Lago spa employees quoted by the Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal — summarized by Mediaite, The Independent, People and others — relied heavily on interviews with former Mar‑a‑Lago employees who are not named in those articles; those former employees told reporters that the Mar‑a‑Lago spa routinely sent “usually young women” to Epstein’s nearby Palm Beach home for massages, manicures and other services, that staff warned one another about Epstein’s sexually suggestive behavior and that an 18‑year‑old returned from a visit saying Epstein had pressured her for sex, prompting managers to send a fax urging that Epstein be banned [1] [4] [3]. Those accounts form much of the new detail in the WSJ reconstruction, but the individuals behind the quotes remain unnamed in the publicly available reports [1].
3. How those unnamed accounts are reported and corroborated
Reporters cite contemporaneous records and recollections — including HR notes and at least one manager’s fax — to corroborate the former employees’ oral accounts that the practice of house calls went on for years and that it stopped after the 2003 complaint, according to the WSJ reporting relayed by other outlets [1] [4]. Outlets such as The Nation and The Independent have emphasized staff warnings that Epstein sometimes exposed himself during appointments, language drawn from the same pool of former‑employee interviews and internal records reported by the Journal [5] [4].
4. Denials and alternative readings: the White House and others
The White House — through press secretary Karoline Leavitt — and presidential spokespeople have pushed back, stating Trump “kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar‑a‑Lago for being a ‘creep,’” and denying the broader implication that Mar‑a‑Lago enabled Epstein’s conduct; that denial has been publicly quoted in reporting that covers the WSJ allegations [4] [6]. Commentators and opinion outlets have framed the same reporting very differently, from seeing a “pipeline” connecting Epstein to vulnerable workers (as some outlets argue) to arguing that the newly reported 2003 incident supports Trump’s claim he cut Epstein off when staff complained [7] [8].
5. What the reporting does — and does not — establish about who spoke on the record
The available public reporting establishes that Virginia Giuffre is a named former Mar‑a‑Lago spa attendant who has given on‑the‑record accounts linking Maxwell and Epstein to recruitment at the club and describing abuse she suffered [1] [2]. It also establishes that multiple former Mar‑a‑Lago spa employees told reporters — but were not identified by name in those stories — that the spa arranged house calls to Epstein, that staff warned each other about Epstein’s behavior, and that an 18‑year‑old complained of being pressured, leading management to ask that Epstein be banned [1] [3]. Beyond Giuffre, the reporting relies on unnamed former employees and contemporaneous notes; their statements have been widely reported but the individuals remain unnamed in the sources provided [1] [4].