[indistinct chatter]
ANNOUNCER: Roll tape. What is Victoria's Secret?
in three, two, one, go.
♪ tense music playing ♪
NICOLE PHELPS: By 2018, the Victoria's Secret way of doing things
was a 20-year-old force of habit.
And so, they were forced to begin making changes.
And during the fashion show, you could see it.
- It's empowering. - Strong.
- Fierce, sexy. - Iconic.
MICHAEL GROSS: The notion that a model
shouting the word "fierce"
was gonna work was just ridiculous,
but it showed just how out of touch
the leadership of Victoria's Secret had become.
They thought they could fool a few more people
and talk about empowerment.
- Successful, confident women.
- Really powerful, young women. - Be sexy for ourselves
and for who we wanna be,
not because a man says you have to be.
It was never about that in the first place.
JAMES SCULLY: That whole hypersexualization worked for a long time,
but there was a point where
the world at large moved on from it and they didn't.
And they went from being valid to invalid [chuckles] so fast.
[audience cheers, applause]
LES WEXNER: The intriguing thing to me
is that as I get older and older,
staying in touch with what society, young women want.
You have to keep flexibility 'cause the world changes
and you have to change with it.
SHARLEEN ERNSTER: The downfall of Victoria's Secret
really came from Les's inability, in my opinion,
to see the success of fashion through any lens other than his own.
He believed we were making a movie with the brand,
but it was always very tilted to this kind of Zeus, you know, like,
one person knows all things.
In fact, at some point after I had already left, um, Victoria's Secret,
Les, evidently, said something to the tune of,
"Am I the only one in the room who knows what women want?"
It doesn't totally surprise me because
he was so egotistically strong in his belief that this is what works,
that he wasn't open to it changing.
REPORTER: This morning, an ad for Victoria's Secret
undergarments is under fire.
"The Perfect Body," those three small but powerful words, igniting outrage.
FREDERIQUE VAN DER WAL: Over the years,
Victoria became something unattainable.
It was too sexy. Like, it's not real anymore.
"I have to have a six-pack." R-Ridiculous idea.
And that's when the disconnect started.
- This morning, women's clothing company Lane Bryant
is chiming in on the conversation about beauty and body image
with a new marketing campaign called "I'm No Angel."
- I'm no angel. - I'm no angel.
MODELS: I'm no angel... - I'm no angel.
NICOLE: There were changes that we were seeing happen
in competitive lingerie brands
in terms of body size, in terms of diversity.
And it felt like a new era was dawning.
REPORTER: Declaring, "We're all angels,"
they're fighting back against the iconic brand Victoria's Secret.
- When social media came in and really changed the media landscape,
that's when the boat kind of started to really, like, shake.
And the change was really fast-paced.
All of a sudden, there was this outburst of,
"We don't wanna see Photoshop. Like, we wanna see real women."
Brands like Aerie came out with no retouching campaigns.
Brands like ThirdLove came out and it was marketed more towards women
versus this man's fantasy sold to women.
- Real women don't have pillow fights with each other every night.
You know, real women, I don't think, sit around with their legs spread
and they're, like, posing at the camera.
And it came to a point in time where women were like,
"No, I'm not really buying into this."
[audience applause]
- A Victoria's Secret in Texas banned a woman
from breastfeeding her son in the lingerie store.
Apparently, they don't want anyone to get the wrong idea
about what breasts are for.
[audience laughs]
- There's all these things that they were saying
or doing, internally, that were against the grain
of where the market seemed to be going,
but they were still at the top
because it takes time for all of that to crumble.
LES: I think technology is going to aid retail, uh,
much more dramatically
than technology is just, "You buy it online."
MICHAEL: Les Wexner had been the king
of brick-and-mortar retail.
But every career ends at some point.
And in Wexner's case, it ended when the meteor
of social media, online shopping, Instagram, all of that
suddenly hit the fashion world and reconfigured it as something else.
SHARLEEN: The social revolution happened so fast,
iPhones, and Instagram, and online shopping.
These were kind of his blindsides.
SARA ZOFKO: It's kind of nuts to think that
a company that was so innovative
couldn't keep up with technology.
TOMMY TON: With the whole boom of the internet,
it's like a community that's growing so fast.
It's the fact that you can have your voice heard.
Digital media really democratized fashion.
Tavi Gevinson was this 13-year-old blogger,
and all of a sudden, in 2010,
she was placed front row next to Anna Wintour at a fashion show.
That was representative of the shift in power in the industry.
So, from then on,
brands were more open to the idea of digital media.
Victoria's Secret started casting more models
that had a bigger social media following.
NICOLE: These young women,
you know, they're brands in themselves,
and in many cases, their followings totally dwarf
the followings of the brands that are hiring them.
It gives these young models an enormous amount of power.
[all cheering]
TOMMY: Victoria's Secret was definitely reaping the benefits,
but at the same time, it kind of bit them in the butt
because the models could speak on their own behalf
and not feel intimidated by a bigger brand.
LYNDSEY SCOTT: The traditional media isn't controlling everything anymore.
People are letting these brands know that we're ready for so much more
than they thought we were, as a society.
ED RAZEK: You can be fierce. You can be strong.
You are emissaries of a very positive message
and you need to do that and only you can do that.
I love you all.
MODELS: Love you! [cheering]
CASEY CROWE TAYLOR: As I was brought more into this
inner circle world,
the culture just started to feel heavy on me.
[indistinct chatter]
I remember being on set once
and Ed made the comment that women only work out
to look good naked for men.
There was always this understanding that, like, "That was just Ed."
SHARLEEN: You never knew what was gonna come out of his mouth.
It was, like, a whole different set of rules that he lived by.
CASEY: In June of 2015, we were on set.
It's lunchtime and they set up a buffet.
I was going up to get more and Ed physically stopped me,
like stepped in front of me,
and said, "Are you really gonna go get more food?"
And I just kind of froze.
And he is like,
"I really don't know how you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning."
I then walked to the bathroom and I'm just... hot with humiliation.
I'm shaking.
It was so confusing, and hurtful, and just, like, shocking
being bullied and harassed,
out of nowhere, in front of
the world's biggest supermodels.
I realized... this is not normal,
this should not be an acceptable thing to happen,
but his behavior was just so normalized.
Maybe a week later,
Monica Mitro puts up an elbow on my cubicle wall and says,
"By the way, Casey,
Ed makes some really weird jokes sometimes, doesn't he?"
It was pretty much that day I immediately started looking for, for other jobs.
LES: The aspect of leadership that I find is most important
is that leaders lead themselves effectively,
and clearly, leaders do take their followers, their flock,
their enterprise, their business, whatever, hopefully, to a better place.
CINDY FEDUS-FIELDS: Beginning in 2016,
Victoria's Secret's profitability
started its rather steep and downward trend.
So... something happened in 2016
that should've gotten somebody's attention.
[indistinct shouting]
ALL: [chanting] This is what democracy looks like!
MICHAEL: The MeToo movement, the consciousness change
has been universal,
sudden, but really it was like water building up behind a dam,
and the dam broke,
and there is no puttin' that dam back together again.
CINDY: When the Harvey Weinstein accusations
and the MeToo movement ramped up,
that was a signal.
Les... missed the change.
He didn't call it... correctly.
- Back in, uh, I guess it was August or September of last year,
I had a meeting with Harvey Weinstein at Miramax.
CINDY: In fact, for the 2000 fashion show
that took place in Cannes,
Harvey Weinstein and Ed Razek
worked closely together.
Then, sometime after,
Harvey Weinstein personally showed up
in the New York offices
with a young woman in tow
wanting her to be made a Victoria's Secret model.
And said he had been sent by Razek.
And the fact that Weinstein, at the suggestion of Razek,
might show up trying to get a young woman a job
is not only poor form, it's tasteless.
If there's some connection between Epstein, Weinstein, Razek,
your business is going south,
wouldn't that lead you to say, "What's going on here?"
Especially somebody like Les
who was so observant.
But that kind of behavior was indicative
of... other behavior at Victoria's Secret.
[audience applause]
[indistinct chatter]
NICOLE: Suddenly, in 2018, you had Savage Fenty,
the brand run by
one of the world's biggest pop stars.
REPORTER: Companies like Rihanna's Savage X Fenty
are showing beautiful women of all shapes and sizes.
RIHANNA: I wanted people to feel that, that energy.
I want them to feel all the different body types,
all the different women in different stages of their womanhood,
and... it was fun.
MICHAEL: When Rihanna put real women
out on the runway,
that was actually socially transformative.
LYNDSEY: People are spending money after seeing inclusion.
They want to see the clothes on their body type before they buy it.
Diversity isn't just pandering, it's a smart business move,
and Rihanna's business is proof of that.
JAMES SCULLY: When people saw that, they were like, "I now see myself."
I mean, then all of a sudden,
Victoria's Secret just looked like a complete dinosaur.
♪
NICOLE: In 2018,
I remember being in an edit meeting at Vogue
and saying, "Let's do a story
about how Victoria's Secret should change."
Ed Razek agreed to sit down for an interview.
And so, I went into the Victoria's Secret office.
[recording plays]
Monica Mitro, who was the executive VP of public relations was there.
There was also a PR person in the room.
[recording plays]
I was essentially giving Ed and Monica
a chance to start rewriting Victoria's Secret history.
[recording plays]
ED: Uh, does the brand think about diversity? Yes.
Do we offer larger sizes? Yes.
- And we were discussing the disruptors
that were emerging and becoming truly competitive for Victoria's Secret.
ED: Everybody, uh, keeps talking about Rihanna's show.
If we had done Rihanna's show,
we would be accused of pandering without question.
NICOLE: Because why?
ED: Because the brand has a specific image,
has a point of view, has a history.
- He discounted the brands that were emerging
because of the changing culture.
ED: We're nobody's ThirdLove.
We're their first love.
HEIDI ZAK: The morning the Vogue article hit,
I woke up and I had a bunch of text messages,
and people were like, "Have you seen this article?"
I read the article and my mouth fell to the floor.
I could not believe the things that came out of his mouth.
ED: We attempted to do a television special for plus size.
No one had any interest in it, still don't.
- I mentioned how we had started seeing more transgender models in fashion.
ED: "Why doesn't your show do this?"
"Shouldn't you have transsexuals in the show?"
No, I don't think we should. "Well, why not?"
I said, "Because the show is a fantasy."
[recording plays]
NICOLE: I filed that story,
and my first feedback was,
"Wow, you've really let them hang themselves."
And that is what Ed did.
[recording plays]
[Nicole laughs]
REPORTER: While Razek later apologized,
his interview unleashed an angry response.
- As luck would have it, we actually had drafted an open letter
to Victoria's Secret earlier in the year that we ended up not publishing.
And when this happened,
it was an opportunity to offer a clear alternative, and it worked.
REPORTER: ThirdLove says revenue has increased 300%
each of the last two years.
NICOLE: My article, and the sort of
media blitz that followed it,
and the uproar on social media
really sort of sealed the deal.
REPORTER 1: One of last night's performers, Halsey,
is making some headlines this morning.
She did respond to the controversial comments
about transgender models, which were made...
REPORTER 2: Model Karlie Kloss telling Vogue magazine,
"I didn't feel it was an image that was truly reflective of who I am
and the kind of message I want to send to young women around the world."
REPORTER 3: Bella Hadid saying she felt the most confident
during Rihanna's Savage Fenty show.
- When I first did Fenty, I was doing other--
There's other lingerie shows,
and I never felt powerful on a runway, like, in my underwear.
NICOLE: When those models
with their enormous platforms started speaking out,
they wound up, you know, in a, in a crisis point.
[recording plays]
♪
REPORTER 1: After two decades,
the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is over.
The company's saying they plan to evolve the messaging
and cut back on costly marketing events.
REPORTER 2: L Brand's reported over a $250 million loss last quarter.
REPORTER 3: Ratings for the show have plummeted as well.
Last year's were the lowest since they started televising it.
The company's sales also struggling.
NICOLE: It took almost a year for Ed to step down.
And I think what that told me
was just how important he was to the brand and to Les.
WOMAN: At this point, they have too much brand baggage
to recalibrate from.
JAMES MITAROTONDA: Numbers were declining,
revenues were declining, earnings were declining.
The stock peaked at $100.22
on November 2015.
And by the beginning of 2019,
the stock was trading at just over $26.
- A wealthy money manager whose friends have included presidents and a prince
is behind bars in Manhattan tonight.
Jeffrey Epstein is accused of sex trafficking
and molesting underage girls.
BARRY LEVINE: With Epstein's second arrest, this time,
it was... like a bomb exploded.
And so, everything around Jeffrey Epstein, every association he had,
uh, was under the microscope now.
REPORTER: The L Brand's board of directors
has enlisted an outside firm to conduct a review
of Jeffrey Epstein's role at the retail company.
BARRY: The company actually hired Davis Polk,
which was Abigail Wexner's former law firm in, in New York
to do one of the investigations.
SARAH ELLISON: The implications are very cloudy,
but with the relationship between Wexner and Epstein in the spotlight,
and the fact that Epstein claimed that he was a Victoria's Secret recruiter,
the company was forced to distance itself
from any connection to Epstein.
And Wexner sort of posits that he had no idea that any of this was going on,
and that years afore,
he had immediately cut ties
with Epstein after his first arrest,
where he did remove power of attorney, but it took more than a year.
- Everyone has to feel, uh, enormous regret,
uh, for the advantage,
uh, that was taken of, uh, of so many young women.
And, uh, that's just unexplainable, abhorrent behavior,
and, uh, clearly, uh, is something
we, we, we all, uh... would condemn.
SARAH: A recently obtained investigation
paints a different picture for L Brands.
When Epstein was first arrested,
documents suggest that L Brands directly aided
Epstein's legal defense in 2006.
One of his accusers happened to have worked for Victoria's Secret,
and the L Brand's legal department
sent over employee records regarding this accuser.
♪
These records were not subpoenaed.
They were provided voluntarily by L Brands, aiding Epstein.
This information was never publicly reported.
♪
WHITNEY WEBB: After Epstein's second arrest,
everyone that has ever been connected to this man
has done everything humanly possible to distance themselves from him.
JESSICA RALSTON: Ohio's richest man,
L Brands founder Les Wexner, says
disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein
mismanaged tens of millions of Wexner's dollars.
SARAH: In the wake of all these terrible allegations,
Wexner talks about his own betrayal by Epstein.
That, in fact, Wexner himself is a victim.
TIM FERAN: Around, I guess it was January of 2019,
I got a tip
that I should look into certain charitable funds
associated with Wexner,
and one of them happened to be a fund
called the YLK Fund.
Those are the initials of Abigail's father,
Yehuda L. Koppel.
This fund was created
around the time of Epstein's case in Florida,
and the president of the fund
was Les Wexner's wife, Abigail,
and the money was $46-some-million put in there
by Epstein.
And it-it's jolting because they're taking money from this guy
who's being convicted
of child abuse, basically.
Les claims that it was money that was stolen from him
and was put back quietly so that he wouldn't be embarrassed.
CONCHITA SARNOFF: Wexner admitted that
Epstein stole money from him,
more than the $46.7 million.
And it was money that should have been reported immediately.
LES: Being taken advantage of
by someone who was, uh, so sick,
so cunning, uh, s-so depraved, um,
it's, uh, it's, it's something that I'm embarrassed
that I was even close to.
SARAH: Wexner is known as being litigious,
and yet, he won't pursue Epstein
for stealing millions upon millions of dollars.
To allow that level of betrayal and dishonesty to happen,
unpunished, um, is entirely unexplained.
TIM: Why didn't you sue him?
What's that all about?
I don't know. I-- It just--
It just doesn't seem to add up to me.
♪
SARAH: Wexner has never specified
how much money he paid Jeffrey Epstein
during the time that Epstein worked for him.
But in my reporting,
the best estimates hover around $400 million.
CONCHITA: Leslie Wexner was a protector
and seemed to be a facilitator for Jeffrey Epstein
because he was the money man behind Epstein.
And I also believe they had a very complicated relationship
financially, personally, and in many other ways.
No.
♪
- What exactly was the relationship?
We know that it was more than a financial adviser,
whether it was building his yacht,
project managing things for him, like New Albany.
Being involved in his personal life and his family in a way,
it seems pretty clear that Epstein knew Wexner in a way
that very few other people did and maybe no one else did.
TIM: I've heard rumors over the years
about Les's sexual orientation.
But here's the thing... do we have anybody firsthand?
Do we have anybody secondhand who can say, "Yes, I was involved with Les."
Do these people exist?
If they exist, I've never heard of them. I'd never met them.
SOPHIE ALEXANDER: There are all these questions
about the relationship that
no one but Les Wexner probably knows the answer to
because now Epstein's dead, and so, he took that to his grave.
- Good morning. This is an NBC News special report.
NBC News has learned that
disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein is dead.
Epstein took his own life while he was behind bars here in New York...
GLORIA ALLRED: The medical examiner said that it was suicide.
There're a number of red flags.
I'm not generally a person who believes in
conspiracies unless they're proven,
but this should never have happened.
And there's so many questions that need to be answered.
- The wound is down here.
You'd think if somebody hung themselves,
the wound would be maybe up here. - Yeah. Yes.
Most hangings, the ligature slides up
to beneath the, the, uh, jawbone, the mandible.
Here, it's in the middle of the neck.
And to add to it, there was a total breakdown in security.
The video cameras didn't work, the guards went to sleep.
CONCHITA: An active federal agent told me
just days after he was arrested on July 6th of 2019,
he said to me, on the phone,
"Conchita, Epstein will not make it to trial."
I said, "What do you mean?"
And he said, "Just listen to what I'm telling you,"
and he repeated his statement.
And of course, he didn't, you know, he didn't elaborate.
GLORIA: So many victims wanted to see him face justice.
They wanted their day in court. They'll never have it.
And what that means is they were denied the whole truth,
much of which could have come out at his trial.
- Are these power players a priority for us right now?
Can we even touch them?
- No, it's like everything, um.
You know, we, we-- It hides in plain sight.
Epstein was hiding in plain sight.
We all knew about him.
We all knew what he was doing,
but we had no one that would go after him.
They were afraid of him. For whatever reason, they were afraid...
- This is Cindy McCain, the wife of John McCain,
admitting at a conference that everyone knew what Epstein was up to.
And this is the wife of a former Republican presidential candidate.
You know, that's hugely significant to say that it was just known
and that powerful circles did nothing about it.
And so, that directly undercuts this whole narrative that, you know,
"Oh, it was just Epstein and he conned everyone."
But this didn't get really any mainstream coverage, um, at all.
- People need to understand the fact that government,
the financial world, specifically, the banking world,
have enabled Jeffrey Epstein's crimes.
BARRY: Epstein was a collector of people.
Not only did he do financial business with these places,
but he also used them to bolster, uh, his own profile,
same way he did with Les Wexner.
NOAH KULWIN: As a guy who had never graduated college,
Jeffrey Epstein was correctly assuming that if he gave enough money,
then he could wear the Harvard sweater around no problem.
And he would get some of that sheen.
And he was absolutely right. It worked flawlessly.
BARRY: There's no question that in death,
Jeffrey Epstein now is continuing to destroy the lives and the reputations
of many wealthy men.
REPORTER 1: Wall Street power broker Leon Black
is stepping down as CEO of the giant investment...
REPORTER 2: Vanity Fair dives into Epstein's relationship
with billionaire hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin.
REPORTER 3: Barclays CEO Jes Staley is stepping down,
this following an investigation...
REPORTER 4: Britain's Prince Andrew says he is appalled
by recent sex abuse claims about his former friend.
REPORTER 5: Former President Bill Clinton
reportedly took more than two dozen trips on Epstein's private jet.
REPORTER 6: Controversy also put a spotlight
on President Trump's relationship with Epstein.
REPORTER 7: New questions are swirling around the state
of Bill and Melinda Gates' marriage.
One source of concern for Melinda
was Bill's dealings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
- Is there a lesson for you, for anyone else looking, looking at this?
- Well, he's dead, so, uh,
you know, in general, you always have to be careful, uh.
BARRY: All of these men have claimed
that they were not aware of Jeffrey Epstein's secret life
and that they were not participants in that dark world.
CONCHITA: This was not about some drug cartel
trafficking children into the United States.
This was about a rich man, who did not need money,
so why was he bringing children from all over the world
and introducing them to politicians and rich men?
Why was he doing this?
I believe that he needed them for something uniquely different.
One, pleasure.
And two, power.
And that power came through blackmail.
And that's what these girls were to him.
They were a tool of blackmail. Period.
WHITNEY: The earliest mention of this infrastructure
being set up comes from The New York Times in 1996,
talking about Epstein's mansion that he got from Wexner,
where a lot of his notorious activities were known to have taken place.
It describes this spy-style, James Bond bathroom
connected to CCTV cameras throughout the premises.
- Was there videotape?
- Oh, yeah, it was all videoed, all the time. Yeah.
And, and I asked him one time, "What do you do with this?"
And he said, "I keep it. I keep everything in my safe."
- The government officials, uh, the politicians, the royalty,
like, you know, they were taping everybody.
Every moment... when you walked in to, to the New York mansion,
to Palm Beach, everything was being filmed.
BARRY: There's still question to this day,
"Where is all of that material?"
Uh, has that material been hidden away?
[indistinct chatter]
♪
There's an individual named John Mark Dougan.
He's a former Palm Beach County sheriff's officer
and he's told a story that's straight out of a spy novel.
He claims the lead detective on the case in Palm Beach, Florida,
turned over to John Mark Dougan 700 CDs
containing video evidence
involving men engaging in sexual relations
with the, uh, young women at Jeffrey Epstein's mansion.
Dougan claims that the, uh, authorities have seen these videotapes.
What's interesting is that John Mark Dougan escaped to Russia.
And you have to wonder,
has this played into Putin's world?
There's a photo of him and a man who was in Putin's inner circle.
So, does Putin have something on individuals in the U.S.
about any of this?
Now, John Mark Dougan does categorically deny that.
SARAH: No one has ever been able to establish
that Epstein, in fact, did have recordings,
but all you need is the fear of exposure
for that kind of power to accrue to him.
WHITNEY: I think Leslie Wexner,
because of his influence, his money, and his power,
is able to operate in a way
that other people in Ohio are not able to operate.
TIM: In the 1990s,
Les got some 747 cargo jets
and helped establish Rickenbacker Airport
as a thriving hub for international cargo.
♪
NOAH: 1995, a company called
Southern Air Transport
relocates from Miami to Columbus, Ohio,
with the assistance of Les Wexner.
Southern Air Transport had been involved and connected to Iran-Contra.
- Southern Air Transport was owned by the CIA.
Now, it's a private company,
but its competitors still call it the "CIA's favorite airline."
- Epstein himself boasted that he had connections to the CIA.
NOAH: Epstein visited the Clinton White House
17 times.
Twelve of those times happened in 1994 alone,
the year before Les Wexner helps relocate
Southern Air Transport from Miami to Columbus.
Now, what business might Jeffrey Epstein have had at the Clinton White House?
We don't know. We may never know.
♪
- Um, so.
So, so, so there has, there has been reporting to that effect.
And, and let me say, um,
there's been reporting to a lot of effects in, in, in this case,
uh, not just now, but over the years. And...
BARRY: Alexander Acosta
was the lawyer for the Southern District in Miami
during Epstein's slap on the wrist conviction.
- This is what the news is like now.
Acosta's always been able to be a little vague
in his justifications for why he did this agreement
to not prosecute Epstein.
BARRY: A few years later, Acosta claimed that
Jeffrey Epstein's, uh, very mild sentencing
came as a result of higher ups
who told Acosta that, uh, Epstein was connected to intelligence.
But there's yet another level to this story.
Les Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein operated in this inner world
of very, very wealthy men
who were staunch backers of Israel
and who are rumored to have various connections to the Mossad.
In fact, Ghislaine Maxwell's father, Robert Maxwell,
was said to have been connected to the Mossad
through Israeli intelligence.
SARA: I remember post-9/11,
when Les came into the store,
he had a bulletproof vest on and always had a lot of security with him.
We knew that he was very involved in Israel.
That was what we were sort of told
why there was so much, um, security for him then.
It was kind of a big deal, but it was pretty regular.
BARRY: Les was always a huge pro-Israel endorser
and gave a, a great deal of money to, uh, many charities
and through the Wexner Foundation.
- Epstein was always in the background, moving money around on behalf of Wexner.
And Wexner's money was the engine for organizations
which had enormous political influence.
NOAH: In the 2000s,
The Wexner Foundation paid a bunch of money
to come up with a communications strategy related to the Iraq war
to, you know, win the hearts and minds on behalf of Israel.
But at a certain point though, you know, part of their involvement
is to be plugged into this bigger political game
to make sure that their preferred outcomes happen,
which makes you wonder how many more layers there are to this world.
Where the story of Les Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein
starts to feel even darker to me is when you start to think about
what are the ideas that these guys might've shared?
What are the beliefs about the world, about humanity?
What did they hold in common?
MICHAEL: I've been told that Wexner was
so egomaniacal
that he commissioned the creation of an artificial intelligence bot.
Something like IBM's Watson, only called Wexner,
to impart his timeless knowledge of marketing and merchandizing.
NOAH: And there's also this report
that Jeffrey Epstein sought out the leading scientists
that he could buy access to
for his experiment to artificially inseminate
dozens of women with his semen
in an effort to improve the quality of the human race,
you know, with his genetic material.
Um, evidently, there were not many takers.
The idea of having a legacy that lives on forever,
whether it's Epstein's master race or Les Wexner's AI scheming,
you know, it all speaks to this very scary, dark, ideological place
that our country's ruling class and elites reside in,
and the rest of us are not a part of their plan.
♪
MICHAEL: The Epstein scandal pulled back a curtain
and shone a light on at least some of the secret behavior
of billionaires in our world.
And we were never supposed to see any of it.
This is all a story that was meant to be hidden and stay hidden.
♪
- There are still so many unanswered questions about Epstein,
the people who were around him, and what exactly they were doing.
Wexner's secrecy doesn't seem to have served him
nor Victoria's Secret.
BARRY: In the wake of investigations
that are continuing to take place,
a lawsuit was filed in Delaware
on behalf of shareholders involving
Wexner's, uh, company.
REPORTER: According to a complaint filed by
a current L Brands shareholder,
Leslie Wexner created a culture within his company
of misogyny, bullying, and harassment,
as well as ties to Jeffrey Epstein and other egregious mismanagement.
- Victoria's Secret is doing damage control tonight,
fighting back against accusations of sexual harassment by a top executive.
NICOLE: In 2020, in this New York Times piece,
we learned that employees and models
had actually lodged harassment claims
against Ed Razek back in 2018.
REPORTER 1: According to The Times,
Razek tried to kiss models and asked them to sit on his lap.
REPORTER 2: Supermodel Bella Hadid was reportedly subjected
to crude comments about her breasts.
REPORTER 3: The lawsuit says that despite numerous complaints
made to the company's human resources department,
neither Les Wexner nor any member of the board
did anything about it.
REPORTER 4: Razek released a statement calling the accusations
"categorically untrue, misconstrued, or taken out of context."
NICOLE: The claims against Ed
and the Jeffrey Epstein relationship
all come to light in the press,
and together, it became a story that you couldn't ignore.
It was a perfect storm of problems for Les Wexner.
Things were falling apart.
SARAH: By 2021,
Wexner's empire was reduced to two companies:
Victoria's Secret, and Bath & Body Works.
Because of the controversies surrounding it,
Victoria's Secret was dragging L Brands' stock down.
JAMES MITAROTONDA: In the case of L Brands,
change was needed.
It was so much pessimism, at the time, about Victoria's Secret,
and so, we issued a plan to improve shareholder value.
♪
REPORTER: Our state's richest man is officially retired.
Les Wexner was the longest-serving CEO
in S&P 500 history with 56 years on the job.
- Must have been difficult for Les to, to step down like that.
That's the kind, you know, thoughtful side of me,
and then, on a business side, I was like, "It's about time."
- Are you able to say why you decided to step down?
Was it related to concerns about culture within your company?
LES: No, of course not.
- Or the fallout from Mr. Epstein? - Thanks.
♪
MICHAEL: The only way for Victoria's Secret
to survive
is if they can appear to be a newborn,
not the product of Les Wexner, or a product of The Limited,
or an offspring of Victoria's Secret,
but a whole new idea for a whole new world.
REPORTER: Victoria's Secret saying goodbye to its Angels.
The company is making a major shift as it begins to rebrand,
aiming to be more inclusive.
- They're replacing the cat walkers with woke-talkers.
REPORTER 2: The company is now signing
seven women with unique backgrounds,
including soccer star Megan Rapinoe
and transgender Brazilian model Valentina Sampaio.
REPORTER 3: Will this rebranding work?
Will consumers return to this giant retailer?
Or did they miss the boat with being diverse and inclusive?
NICOLE: Victoria's Secret has replaced the Angels
with the VS Collective,
which is a group of women that they selected
for their diversity and for their activism.
- Now, you see Victoria's Secret desperately, and really desperately,
I mean, you can see them sweat trying to catch up.
- The transformation that we have at Victoria's Secret
begins with the admission that we got it wrong.
We lost relevance with the modern woman.
- Victoria's Secret attempting what some are calling
one of the biggest brand transformations
in recent memory.
FREDERIQUE: I'm glad Victoria's Secret woke up.
They had to.
Were they late to the table? Absolutely.
SARA: It feels a little focus group-y.
Like it came out of a think tank a little bit,
but it's a step forward.
♪
CASEY: With the change of management,
Victoria's Secret's making really great strides
to change the brand into a women's brand versus a man's brand sold to women.
They're featuring pregnant models.
They're featuring models who are older.
They're featuring models with different body types,
which is exactly what everybody wanted to see
in 2016, 2017, 2018.
- Sexy is obviously something to be celebrated,
but it is broader
because a female consumer is not just one thing, she's many.
♪
LYNDSEY: It's hard for me to look at Victoria's Secret the same way
after all of the allegations that have come out.
I think they do have a lot of work to do
to prove that they... are changing.
But I guess only time will tell.
TODD THOMAS: Is it reactive? Probably.
Should you do it... right? Yeah, you should.
I mean, you know, so it's kind of like, "What are the options?"
To get criticized for changing or don't change?
LINDSEY CASELLA: Just because your branding is earth tones
and "feel good" messaging
doesn't mean that
you're actually believing in these things.
I personally feel like it's just a good marketing campaign
and nothing else.
Today, a male is still the leader of this organization
creating a woman-driven industry.
♪
DOROTHEA BARTH-JORGENSEN: The fashion industry is
based on something that is not true.
I don't know how long that illusion will last.
And I think the brands that will do well
is the ones that is coming from true integrity.
MICHAEL: The complex of magazines, manufacturers,
designers, models
is still going to exist,
but it's going to be very different.
The magazine brands don't matter.
Malls all across America, they're dying.
Social media has changed things,
but it's not the end of this change.
It's just the beginning.
NICOLE: How great that we have entered an era
where difference is beginning to be celebrated.
But at the same time,
Instagram has totally created
this insane world of filters,
and the plastic surgeons are racing to keep up
with whatever the trends of these filters are making people look like.
♪
ASHLEY MEARS: If you look at influencers,
it's an extremely homogenous look.
Like, the lips, the pose, the hair, the, the butt, the breasts.
I think that Victoria's Secret's... legacy is very present there.
♪
REPORTER: Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late
and disgraced media mogul Robert Maxwell,
has tonight been found guilty of having helped her lover,
the financier Jeffrey Epstein, sexually abuse teenage girls.
SARAH: Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in 2020
for her association with Epstein.
Now that she's been found guilty,
she could spend the rest of her life in prison.
REPORTER: Um, Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison.
Do you feel that she's going to turn in powerful men?
- I just wish her well, frankly.
SARAH: The powerful, uber wealthy
people who were around Epstein
have reputations to protect,
and have been, up to this point, sort of impenetrable.
They all have this, this chink of vulnerability.
- An investigation is underway in Paris after a close associate
of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein,
modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel,
was found dead this morning in his prison cell.
- The family of Ghislaine Maxwell says they're worried for her safety...
REPORTER: This is astounding to hear,
considering the fact that he died exactly the same way Jeffrey Epstein did.
WHITNEY: Epstein was just one person
operating within this network.
And if you look more at what the power structure is
that enabled Epstein to do this,
this network is, essentially, a business that's too big to fail,
sort of like the Wall Street banks in the 2008 crisis
because of their reach and the damage that would be done,
the same power structure.
If it was investigated and, uh, brought into the forefront
of American public consciousness,
it would have, you know, similarly huge ramifications.
CINDY: The board of L Brands
conducted two investigations
into the business relationship between Epstein and Wexner
and have made no public report.
If something was done that was illegal,
that needs to be reported.
NOAH: I grew up near too many malls to count.
And if I were to go into a mall,
and I were to open up my wallet and spend dollars on clothes as a kid,
you know, there's a good chance that those dollars
were goin' to Les Wexner, and, you know, axiomatically,
those dollars were goin' to Jeffrey Epstein.
♪
SARAH: I think Wexner is going to be remembered
as an enormously visionary
and also incredibly flawed and damaged person
in the history of American business.
The Epstein story has done more damage to him
than anything else in his life.
Even as his legacy has been tarnished,
he's still amassing wealth
and still one of the most powerful billionaires in the country.
LES: I remember... my dad said,
"You have a lot of ability,
"much more than I ever thought you had.
[audience cheering]
You have real ability and just be careful how you use it."
♪ solemn music playing ♪
♪