Hollywood Stars Name-Dropped In Epstein Docs By Witness Saying She Never Met Them
As news outlets race to pore over nearly a thousand pages of Jeffrey Epstein-related documents that were released Wednesday evening, several famous names are already circulating — but context is key. In the age of race-to-be-first news, and amid the rise of AI-generated online content, it’s more important than ever to read past the headlines. These people appear to have only been mentioned in Johanna Sjoberg’s deposition where she denies having met them.
Sjoberg, one of Epstein’s victims who had worked for him as a masseuse, was deposed on May 18, 2016 in connection with Virginia Giuffre’s defamation suit against Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison following a conviction on charges of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors.
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Sjoberg was asked if she’d met various high-profile people including Cate Blanchett, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz and Naomi Campbell — and the answer to those was universally “no.” Other than a reference to reading “one press report” there’s no explanation as to why those people were brought up. Sjoberg essentially just said Epstein name dropped them after hanging up phone calls. She was also asked about Kevin Spacey, George Lucas, and former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, and none of her answers implied untoward conduct.
“Did you ever meet anybody famous when you were with Jeffrey?” the attorney asked. Sjoberg responded, “I met Michael Jackson.” Other than Jackson and David Copperfield, who she recalled doing magic tricks during a dinner, she doesn’t remember meeting any other stars.
Another person she recalled meeting was modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who was found dead in a French jail amid an investigation into rape and trafficking charges. She couldn’t recall if she’d ever given him a massage. “I gave a lot of guests massages,” she said in the deposition. “I don’t remember any of their names. So it could have been any of those people besides the movie stars.”
Speculation about the contents of the documents being unsealed has been rampant since U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska on Dec. 18 ordered their unsealing following a lawsuit by The Miami Herald. (A previous trove was unsealed in the days before Epstein’s 2019 death.) So much so that the Associated Press ran a detailed fact check on the coverage to make clear it’s not Epstein’s “client list” and that most of the names had already been made public through previous news coverage and court proceedings.
According to Preska’s order, which lists Does by number as well as the corresponding documents they’re mentioned in and a brief description of whether or not they’ll be un-redacted and why, a dozen of the Does are mentioned in this transcript. Not all of the documents those Does are mentioned in have been released, nor have all of their names, so it remains to be seen whether any of the A-listers the attorneys asked Sjoberg about are mentioned again.
In fact, an attorney for The Miami Herald on Thursday sent a letter to judge Preska asking that the list of Doe pseudonyms be unsealed as well.
“As a practical matter, the unsealing is garnering a significant amount of media coverage — by Intervenors, other news organizations, and commentators on social media. Without this list, Intervenors and the public are puzzling together the Court’s ruling with each of the unsealed documents to match the identities of each of the third parties with the Court’s ruling,” states the letter. “Releasing the complete list of names and pseudonyms will avoid spread of incorrect information that may arise from trying to unweave the partial disclosures and will enable the public and press to understand this Court’s reasoning.”
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