Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons (2022–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - The Secret Friend - full transcript

- The idea of sexuality
and what was sexy during the 2000s

was really a radical and fast change.

There was all this romance
about the original muse, Victoria.

How smart, educated,
and well-raised that she was.

That projects normal kind of woman

who likes to feel beautiful.

Nothing sleazy.

- And that was just
not resonating anymore.

- If it seems to you that every year,

the ads selling lingerie
are getting more and more,

well, shall we say revealing,
you'd be right.



In fact, the people who
sell lingerie and manufacture it

say that the ads have always reflected

the way women see themselves
and the way society sees them.

You go around a room

and the room could be filled
with female executives.

And you say,
"Does everybody understand

that Victoria's Secret is about sexy?"

And everybody says, "Yes."
And then you say, "Which sexy is it?"

Then you have a big debate
about what is the essence of sexy

as it relates to
the Victoria's Secret brand.

- That's where the Wexner story
and the larger story of the culture cross.

It exploited things that were
already going on in the culture.

It was the exploitation
of sex to sell things.

In the late '90s,



the President of the United States

had an affair with an intern.

Monica, look over here! Monica!

Monica!

- And I think there was a shift

in the thinking of the American public.

How can a President facing

embarrassing sexual allegations

go up in the polls?

- That some of this risky business

might be more acceptable,

and Les may have realized that,

and that is why he chose

to drive the brand imaging
into a sexier mode.

This was the image of the catalog.

Tasteful, classy, covered-up
lingerie on the covers.

This was our big spring issue
and Les and Ed Razek,

who was the leader of creative marketing,

came to my office because they
wanted to see the cover options.

And the statement was,
"They're not sexy enough."

When the Angels appeared,
the English image went away.

Here they are in 2000
in their bras and panties

emerging from a spaceship.

Victoria's Secret introduces Angels 2000.

At this point in time,

I realized that the original
Victoria was dead.

She'd been killed off
by Angels in the spaceship,

by cabaret dancers.

The earth Angels.

We moved into the more
aggressively sexy point of view.

That's the leap the brand made.

- This was the era of Sex and the City.

Sex was at the forefront of that show

and at the forefront
of female empowerment.

The brand, you know, grew from that same

cultural movement of women
taking back their sexuality,

owning their sexuality, feeling empowered.

And I think that
that was a big part

of what drove the brand's
success at that time.

Obviously, this was 20 years ago
and the culture was very different.

- Absolutely, like, bang on,
you know, the correct positioning,

and how they got to phase one
of their next level of growth.

And that's how Les and Ed
really positioned the brand.

- Are you from Brazil?
- I am.

- From where?
- Brazil.

- Are you from Brazil?
- Yeah.

- Is there anyone left there?
- Yeah, I think so.

- Ed Razek was like
the Hollywood arm of the business.

He was with the models,
and the runway shows,

and he had to deal
with the commercials and marketing.

We work it constantly.

We work every aspect of this,
and none, none of it's accidental.

We did Venn diagrams and graphs,

and we had a whole team

that just would forecast what is sexy now.

It was like, here's the plan,

here's the pathway,

and here's the data behind it.

You know, we talk about things
being data-driven now.

This is 20 years ago.
It was very data-driven.

From the research,

we built this machine
that created the Angels,

and built on supermodels and perfection,

and this unattainable sexy that was,

"I wanna be that so bad,
I'll just buy it."

It was embodied by the supermodels
that were part of our brand.

- I think several years ago,
supermodels were reluctant

to, uh, do lingerie advertising
of any kind.

And if you look around the room now,

I think you'll essentially
see nothing but supermodels.

- Supermodels had almost
gone to the next level

and became these kind of celebrities.

They weren't even supermodels anymore.

They became something else.

- I told my modeling agency
to call Victoria secret

because they put girls on the map.

- People all over the place,
all of a sudden, would know who I am.

It made me kind of a household name.

I think that was a big shift

where it became very desirable
to work for the brand.

They invested in the models
that worked for them.

They gave them the media training
and they gave them the tools

to be able to communicate
what that brand message was.

- They'd be traveling to the stores,
they'd be featured in all the campaigns,

they'd be working pretty much
all year round for Victoria's Secret.

It wasn't just being an Angel,

you represented fragrance,
you represented lingerie,

you represented all the things that
models make the most money for doing.

Those contracts were really lucrative,
in the millions of dollars.

- We're professional girls.
We know how to act when the camera is on.

I think Victoria's Secret's
like the most important.

I think that's what girls want to do
when they turn to a model

and they come to America.
That's where they wanna reach.

And totally, like, this thing here,
like, all of us, you know, that's...

It couldn't be better.

- Creating a brand is making a movie.

It was very easy for me

to make a movie in my mind.

I had that ability.

I do see myself as the studio head,

so it means I get to review the scripts,

make sure everybody stays on story.

You have to have an idea.

You have to bring all
the creative talent together.

But I think that that translates
directly to fashion brands.

We try to make all of our commercials

feel like movies.

What distinguishes
our commercials from most

is that we put into them an aspiration

and to do things that
no one else would do.

We're out in the Mojave desert
in California,

shooting the holiday commercial
with the legendary director Michael Bay.

- I told them their
commercials were too soft.

And, uh, so we kind of made 'em
a little harder-edged, sexier.

It's lingerie, but, you know,

Michael Bay is, like, doing
explosions and pyrotechnics.

It's, like, mostly legs walking to you,

and it's dark and sultry,
and, like, he definitely set a mood.

That was part of the culture.

If you need to spend money

to create what you're trying
to create in this ambiance,

then you spend that money.

That was Les' philosophy.

- This is a business that's run by women,

uh, the president's a woman,
all of the senior executives,

virtually all of the senior executives
are women.

All of the stores are run by women.

This is a business meant to be

designed for, by, and to women.

- Les Wexner certainly hired
some fantastic female executives.

And I don't think he hired them
for window dressing at all.

He was proud of their success,

but he took that success as his own.

- When I was there, I definitely felt like

I was surrounded by a lot
of great women leaders.

But if you get down to it,
the people who ran the company,

or who were the leaders,
or the head of the company,

it was Les Wexner and Ed Razek.

I can remember being in the UK.

The most popular single garment
they sold was the thong.

I said, I said,
"Maybe we should sell thongs."

And so, the ladies that
were running Victoria's Secret

said, "Oh, that's really trashy."

And I said, "Let's try it and see."

Our inspiration in the design house

was femininity from
a woman's point of view,

not femininity from a man's point of view.

We did boards on what's sexy now,
and we tried to affect him,

but... that was always
in direct opposition

of how Les saw sexy,

and in direct opposition
on how Ed saw sexy.

Victoria's Secret women's version.

- Ladies, this is the show
you just can't miss.

The fashions, the fabrics, the color.
Here on CBS.

Men's version.

- Lots of beautiful women.

Very little clothing.

Time and time again,
we couldn't get past Ed.

He had the power to shut down an idea,

and if Les happened to be there,
Les backed him.

There was a security between the two.

Les wanted nothing to do with maternity,

he wanted nothing to do with shapewear,

he wanted nothing to do
with comfort, you know?

It was just like, boom,
this woman shot out of a cannon

that was born perfect,
and impossible to become,

and then made better
by push-ups and padding.

So, no matter what we did,

Ed was going to make the decision
on how our swimwear looked,

how our lingerie was shot,

and how, how that projection
of our brand looked.

Bring me to my knees.

- By 2005, and definitely even by 2007,

as were, it started to split,
you know, at the seams.

We were just following
the bombshell, unattainable,

single vision of how men see women.

And it was really frustrating to all
of us internally at Victoria's Secret.

If there was a gap

between fashion and soft-core pornography,

what Victoria's Secret did
was inch it closer and closer

until it was almost touching.

I remember, in the beginning,

Les showed me a Playboy magazine.

And he wanted to make the point

that the models had perfect bodies,

and no freckles or moles.

I don't know if
your camera's catching this,

but I'm loaded with freckles.

He was so adamant

that I go after perfect women,

à la sexy girls next door,

that he actually made arrangements
for me to fly to Chicago

and have lunch with Christie Hefner.

Growing up, I would see all these
Victoria's Secret advertisements.

I never noticed any advertisements
for any other fashion brands.

So, I think they definitely
pushed it out to the public

in a way that a lot
of other companies weren't.

They took one fantasy and ran with it.

- A lot of you were about
9 or 10 years old

when we started putting this show on CBS,

uh, and started watching it and thought...
And I'll bet thought to yourselves,

"Boy, I hope someday I can do that."

- Some of you learned
how to walk in high heels,

watching the Victoria's Secret Show
over and over again.

For me, fantasies are more effective

when there's a diversity to them.

And... a lot of the models
looked the same,

not a lot of different
body types at the time,

uh... not racially diverse.

It became clear to me

that Victoria's Secret wasn't
empowering women.

They used such a narrow idea
of beauty in their marketing,

that it was doing the complete opposite.

It was making women feel
badly about themselves.

Women are at war with their bodies.

From grandmothers to teenagers,

studies show 60 to 80% of American women
want to be thinner than they are.

- Young children are being affected
by imagery every single day.

89% of teenage girls

feel the fashion industry
pressures them to be skinnier.

- Nothing ever changes in terms of
the people they put on the runway.

An average American woman is a size 14.

Plain and simple.

It's very frustrating
sitting here watching.

- Definitely, they've been a big part of

creating an image
that is almost unattainable.

It's not just Victoria's Secret,

but the whole
modeling industry in general.

- You have to watch what you eat.
Very important.

- I was even told when I was
123 pounds to lose 10 pounds

- and to go to 113...
- Oh, wow.

- Because I was...
- At your height?

- At 5'10 because I was so curvy.

And they were like,
"That's just too much."

- I didn't have an eating disorder,

but I didn't eat very much for 10 years.

You became very self-aware,

having to live up
to those ideals all the time.

I felt like I lost... a part
of myself in that world.

- Today, people howl about the effects
of Instagram on young girls.

At the time, Victoria's Secret was
the analog version of the same thing.

Traditional forms of media,

or pre-social media forms of marketing

have been playing on our insecurities

and making us feel, uh, poor,

making us feel fatter,
making us feel uglier.

It creates a tremendous
kind of pressure on most women

who actually can't look like this.

These are bodies that
are just extremely thin,

but, but also somehow curvy,

which is usually only attainable
through extreme dieting,

and, uh, and fitness regimens,
and plastic surgery.

- Now, you know how to train like Angel.

- One of the biggest things
that shocked me

when I was behind
the scenes working there,

was I didn't realize just how much
retouching is happening.

It's an image that is retouched,

photoshopped... changed.

That's literally impossible.

A lot of people think
the modeling industry's very glamorous.

And it is in some ways,
but as you get more into it,

you realize that there are people
who allowed a lot of bad things to happen.

From the very beginnings,

the modeling business has attracted
men who wanted to exploit women.

Even the so-called pure queen
of the modeling business, Eileen Ford,

would have parties at her house

where she would introduce
her models to wealthy friends.

Her excuse was that she
wanted to ensure that the models

had a comfortable life
after they stopped modeling,

therefore, what they needed
was rich husbands.

So, there have always been
these men hovering around

looking for sexual rewards
and financial rewards,

and the business has always
allowed them to get away with it.

But one man Eileen Ford

does associate with in Paris

is this man, the head of Karin Models,

one of the largest and most prestigious
agencies in the country.

His name is Jean-Luc Brunel.

Here's a modeling agent from Paris

who had been exposed as a super creep

in 1988 by 60 Minutes.

He is acting as a matchmaker.

He's got the agency, he's got the girls,

his friends say,
"Oh, Jean-Luc, I'd like to have...

You know, I'd like to meet some girls."

Or, "We're having a party tonight.
Can you bring some girls?"

- And what happens if you say no?

- You don't work.

- He was abusive.

He exploited women,
particularly underage girls,

and he fled to New York.

And of course, that's where
Jean-Luc Brunel met Jeffrey Epstein.

Jeffrey gives Jean-Luc Brunel
a million dollars to start up MC2,

which is a modeling agency
that was based in South Florida

with satellite offices in Tel Aviv
and in New York City.

Brunel got the girls visas.

They were put up in
one of Epstein's apartments

on East 66th Street,

and that allowed Epstein
to legally bring girls

from all over the world
into the United States

under the guise of modeling.

- When you talk to the women who
were abused by Epstein,

Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime

girlfriend / friend / fixer

was usually the first
person they talked to

and the person who took them
to go see Jeffrey.

So, she was integral
to his overall scheme.

They were, in essence,

a predatory Bonnie and Clyde.

These girls came to trust Ghislaine

almost in a sisterly way
or as a mother figure.

And instead, she turned
these girls over to Jeffrey.

- Epstein was going to use
whatever he needed

in order to lure these girls.

And he does this,
of course, for his pleasure

and for the pleasure of others.

Others who he intends
to influence and manipulate.

In my reporting,

we talked to someone
named William Mook,

who said that in 2005
there was a meeting

with Ed Razek and Jeffrey Epstein
at Epstein's mansion.

And Mook said he remembers Razek saying

Epstein's models are some of the best.

- In the '90s, late '90s,
I remember being on set

and that people had mentioned this name.

And then at one point,
I think I was somewhere on a dinner,

and this girl said to me,

"I'm asked to go and see Jeffrey Epstein."

And I go...
"For Victoria's Secret?" Like, "Why?"

"That seems unreal."

So, the Epstein thing was rotating around.

It was, um...

The few times this happened,

it was definitely never Victoria's Secret
who said to go see Epstein.

He used Victoria's Secret
as a calling card.

In the spring or summer of '93,

it was reported to Les

that a man was going around New York City

portraying himself as a recruiter

for Victoria's Secret catalog models.

It was Jeffrey Epstein.

And Les said he would stop it.

I don't believe the behavior stopped.

I believe it continued.

One woman said she met with Epstein

in a California hotel room,

believing she was interviewing for a job
as a Victoria's Secret catalog model.

I was doing a lot of lingerie catalogs.

I'm coming off of Baywatch.
I've been in Playboy.

I'm auditioning for all these shows.

I have a vast portfolio.

And I thought the one thing
that might be missing

is to get in
the Victoria's Secret catalog.

In 1997, Jeffrey Epstein
had come out to California.

I had a meeting with him
at Shutters Hotel in Santa Monica.

I want to be
in the Victoria's Secret catalog,

so I said,
"Okay, I'll go in the hotel room."

I called my friend multiple times.

And then I thought,
I should really go file a police report.

I don't know what
this person just did to me.

He could be doing this to other girls.

Did Victoria's Secret ever know

that a police report was filed by her?

Did they ever ask Epstein about that?

Did Les Wexner know about that?

Why is the denial
of a wealthy, well-known man

of more value

than the serious allegation
to law enforcement

by one woman who happens to be a model?

- Apparently, nothing changed,

and we also know that Wexner
continued to praise Epstein

even after this time.

Wexner told Vanity Fair
in 2003 that Epstein was

"very smart with excellent judgment
and high standards."

And he added,
"He is always the most loyal friend."

- Jeffrey Epstein
clearly profited tremendously

from his friendship with Leslie Wexner.

Uh, not only was there
a power of attorney signed,

which gave him complete control
over hundreds of millions of dollars,

there was also transference of money

that allowed Epstein to buy
vast real estate holdings,

including the Manhattan Triplex,

the apartments on East 66th Street,

the Stanley, New Mexico, ranch,

the Avenue Foch Apartment in Paris.

- Epstein also got a great deal
for Wexner's company plane.

It's impossible to know
exactly what he paid

because the transaction was shrouded
in so many shell companies.

When you hear something like

a private jet was sold
at below market value

from the corporation to Epstein...

- This became the one that the media
has nicknamed "Lolita Express"

because Epstein used it,

sometimes, to traffic... underage girls.

This is a culture of complicity.

Many people down the hierarchy

enable exploitation

from the agent that represents the victim,

all the way to the top.

How is the company doing financially?

- Oh, just great.

- Regarding the Victoria's Secret brand
in the last quarter,

our sales increased 18%

and our operating income increased 34%.

- Not only was the brand
successful in sales...

but it reached so much further
than just being a lingerie store.

Merging fashion and entertainment,

the Victoria's Secret Angels
return to Hollywood

to dazzle audiences

with a televised fashion spectacular.

They are a cultural phenomenon.

I think those years, '11, '12, '13,

were kind of like the years
where things were really, really golden,

and acknowledgments were coming in
for the magnitude of the show.

- No other lingerie brand
could compete with Victoria's Secret.

Les Wexner was monomaniacally focused
on accumulating money and power,

and money and power
because money is power.

- At the peak,
Victoria's Secret owned 40 to 45%

of the entire market in the U.S.

This company's crushing it.

There was a moment
in time where Victoria's Secret

wasn't just a part of culture,

but they were actively creating
the culture itself.

I have the privilege today to introduce

a man who, um, more than anyone
in Columbus needs no introduction.

Ladies and gentlemen, Leslie Wexner.

If you can picture Columbus as it is,

and imagine a wonderful arena
where the penitentiary site is,

a museum, a, a COSI,
a place for public entertainment,

75-, 80-acre park on a riverfront,

close to the downtown,
close to a convention facility.

How different would the city be?

- Growing up, Les wanted to become

part of the establishment in Columbus.

He developed a plan for downtown Columbus.

The city fathers just
couldn't go along with it.

So instead, he managed to buy up property

in this small, rural
farm community east of town.

By the time it all came to pass...
he owned the place.

- I continue, uh, to promise you
I'm not moving to New York.

Only to... New Albany, yes. New York, no.

- If you are a Jewish guy
who grew up in Columbus, Ohio,

which was not a particularly
friendly place to Jews,

you come into a lot of money.

It would only be natural
to build the biggest,

most luxurious, exclusive
development possible

near your hometown,

and make all of the goyim aware
of exactly how wealthy you are,

and exactly the kinds of people that you
are going to invite into your community.

New Albany is a collection
of stunning neighborhoods,

each with its own characteristics,

yet connected by
a signature white horse fence

and timeless Georgian architecture.

- He wants to create this sort of
Wonderland for himself

that he can exert
a measure of control over.

He dictated that the circumference
of the trees would all be uniform.

The grass is better kept in New Albany.

This is the idea of the world

that Ralph Lauren was selling.

It's a fantasy,
it's a marketing invention.

It doesn't exist.

It's an imaginary idea of what
the WASP world was like.

- Wexner, of course, has
the largest house in New Albany.

It's an enormous estate
sprawling with stables

and what is effectively a guest house.

That house originally belongs
to Wexner's original partner

in New Albany, Jack Kessler.

And Jack Kessler sells the house
to Jeffrey Epstein for $3.5 million.

Now, Epstein can see
from his door Wexner's mansion.

- Jeffrey Epstein was
incredibly active in creating,

um, Les Wexner's financial portfolio.

He was a conman thinking about himself
and putting himself in there

to reap the dividends of this,
uh, bizarre relationship.

- Wexner involved Epstein very early on
in the development of New Albany.

Epstein's name pops up as early as 1991

in all of the overlapping entities that
were involved in developing New Albany.

- One senior executive said that
he told Wexner, in no uncertain terms,

that Epstein was a wolf.

And Wexner just sat there
and stared at him silently.

Epstein would turn
Leslie Wexner against individuals

that he thought, you know,
might be standing in his way.

And certainly,
there's no question in my mind

that, uh, Jeffrey Epstein came between

Les Wexner and his mother, Bella.

- In the early '90s, Bella Wexner

falls ill and she resigns
from the Wexner Foundation Board.

Jeffrey Epstein takes her place.

And then later when she recovers,

she wants her seat back.

And what results is
a protracted and difficult lawsuit

that Wexner himself
could have resolved at any point.

He doesn't step in

and he's clearly at odds
with his mother over it.

- There was always talk that there was
something else going on with Les Wexner.

I remember there was a big story
in New York Magazine,

a cover story called
"The Bachelor Billionaire" about Wexner.

And it really caught your attention
because here was this kind of

elfin little guy surrounded
by beautiful models.

But you came away
from reading it thinking,

"This guy's a real question mark.
He's kind of a cipher."

- There has been a lot
of theorizing about Les's, um,

sexual orientation.

Uh, but here's the thing.

The story goes,

Les had a number of girlfriends

and he was fairly serious, apparently,
with a woman here in Columbus.

Unfortunately, she was not Jewish.

Bella put her foot down and said,

"My grandchildren are not going
to have a shiksa for a mother."

And that was the end of that.

People love to gossip.

If a man or a woman is not
married by a certain age,

you know, people like to form opinions.

- In the '80s and '90s,
Fortune 500 company CEOs

were just simply not gay.

The very notion was incomprehensible.

Wexner needed any rumor
like that to go away.

And a few years later,

that's when Abigail Koppel
entered the picture.

This beautiful, brilliant,
young lawyer in New York.

She's not only Jewish,

her father was one of the founding
figures of the state of Israel.

He came over and opened the
El Al Israel Airline office in New York.

Wexner's embraced
change in his personal life.

He married for the first time.

Before the marriage,

Jeffrey Epstein made very clear to Les

that he would oversee
the prenuptial agreement.

I remember Abigail was pregnant

and I was standing chatting
with her at a party.

And she said she had found
a nanny she wanted,

but the nanny wasn't
inclined to accept the job.

And Abigail said,
"I'm gonna sic Jeffrey on her."

- He can work miracles,
and do this, and he'll know.

No.

He put a classified ad
in The Columbus Dispatch

advertising for a nanny
for a wealthy couple in New Albany.

Contact Jeffrey Epstein.

What it implied to me

was that he may have managed the money,

but clearly, Epstein was deeply involved

in the personal lives of Abigail and Les.

- New Albany becomes the location
of some alleged crimes,

and it gets very close to the Wexners,
both Les and his wife.

Maria Farmer was a young
art student living in New York.

She ended up meeting Jeffrey Epstein
not long after she graduated

in the summer of 1996.

When I spoke to Maria,

she told me that Jeffrey Epstein
offered her the wonderful opportunity

to spend the summer at Wexner's estate,

where she's going to have great light

and going to be able to paint.

When Maria got to Wexner's estate,
she was brought to the guest house,

which was then owned by Jeffrey Epstein,

and was immediately greeted by security

and found that her movements
were really tightly controlled.

She was told that she couldn't go outside
without getting explicit permission,

and she was told that there
were guard dogs on the property.

Maria Farmer told me that
one month into her stay,

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
assaulted her.

What Maria does in the aftermath of that

is lock herself in her room
and stack furniture against the door,

so that they can't get in.

She called 911 and was put on hold
and eventually hung up on.

She then attempts to call the police.

And when she reaches
the local authorities,

the voice on the other line says,
"We're already there."

And the police are actually guarding
Wexner's home and his gate,

and so, she sort of lost all hope.

- Maria said she was held against her will
for a period of 12 hours

before she was allowed to leave
the Wexner property in New Albany.

You would think that this
would be in a security log,

that his security team would have
informed Les Wexner what had taken place.

Sheriff's department there
in Franklin County says

that the records
from that particular night

are no longer held in the archive.

She eventually spoke to the FBI
and we do know that those records exist.

On the course of reporting the story,

the Wexners were, at first,
very reluctant to engage.

But what they told me, eventually,
through a spokesman,

that Epstein's house
was just one of hundreds

in a community developed by Les Wexner.

When what our reporting indicated
was that it was, in fact, impossible

to access Epstein's property
without going through Wexner's gate.

Maria presented me
with her driver's license

that she had that summer,

and at the bottom of that driver's license

was the address, 1 White Barn Road,

the home address
of Les and Abigail Wexner.

Maria Farmer has accused
Abigail Wexner of acquiescence

while Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell

sexually assaulted her
in the New Albany compound,

and effectively imprisoned her there
and kept her under security guard.

- What's so ironic is that,
uh, Abigail Wexner

was a champion of charities
trying to protect younger women

from domestic abuse.

- People ask me, you know, wh... was it...

"Did you have personal history,

or why would you choose
to pick this issue?"

Um, and it's pretty simple, you know?

Uh, the whole notion of women and children
being abused in our own backyards

is just not something I want to live with.

Um, and so, I chose to get involved.

If somebody has done something bad,

you know, something corrupt,

uh, taken advantage
of their leadership position,

uh, I will execute them publicly.

- The industry overall is just exploding.

And now, we're also, um,
experiencing tremendous growth

in the junior market as well.

That's really coming on strong,
the new young consumer.

- In the early aughts,
Wexner decided to expand his audience

and marketed the new brand PINK
towards young girls.

I think, uh, Les was
pretty excited about PINK,

and so, it got a lot of attention.

He saw an opportunity

and he, he likes
to exploit an opportunity.

One day, they cleared
the whole hosiery room out

and they were just putting
all this crazy, bright-colored cotton,

tiny panties, and matching camisoles,
and sweatpants out.

And then the music went pop.

- PINK was created to complement
this bombshell Victoria's Secret brand.

And it actually made them more relevant
because of the culture shift to that.

They were targeting
that millennial generation.

- Ed Razek would use the term
"fantasy" for Victoria's Secret.

For PINK, the specific word
that they used was "FOMO."

They wanted to create FOMO.

They wanted people to have
a fear of missing out.

That was the marketing strategy
and it worked.

We would specifically have events

that the goal was for people
to post and take photos of,

so that they would be sharing
on their social media

that they had this incredible
experience with the brand.

PINK ensures the long-term
growth of Victoria's Secret

by bringing in a steady stream
of young customers

who we can hold for decades.

- That was the one that
didn't sit well with me.

You already had this brand
that had standards

that were unattainable
to the everyday person.

And now, you were trying to do things

that would make girls
feel worse about themselves.

- Let's go!
- Stand by sexy delicious.

This is the one
with all the, um, sweeties.

Adriana's the first one out.

- Come with me, girls!
Come with me! Come on!

- I was wearing balloons.
They were not clothes.

They were not sold in the stores.

I had this dress with toy things around

and the whole set was
pretty much based on toys.

I didn't even know who Justin Bieber
was before I did that show.

My sister's children were so excited

that I've been going on
the runway with Justin Bieber.

They were so obsessed with him.

And they're, like, 10 and 12 at the time,
so I think, definitely,

they hit the target.

- It wasn't about the clothes
as much as it was about the models

fulfilling this idea of this fantasy
that Victoria's Secret wanted to fulfill.

Here we have the naughty policeman.

Oh, here we have
the little school girl in her little kilt.

This little girl is wearing powder puffs.

Oh, and carrying a hula hoop.

The New York Times called out,
uh, Barbie doll-like bodies.

This little Barbie is riding a tricycle.

I think that's what
she might be doing there.

For me, that's when I was...

Felt like something was
going the wrong direction.

I mean, 'cause PINK was literally
designed to target teenagers and tweens.

And so, that did not feel good.

- I think what happened
for Victoria's Secret

is, like, you have
to up the ante every time,

you have to renew the brand,

so at one point, as a whole,
it became a little too much.

And I think this is where the moment came,

where younger women were looking at that

and saying, "This is not fair to me.
I don't feel comfortable looking at this."

With the advent of MeToo,

that's when the world shifted

because, all of a sudden,

word leaked that models were being
assaulted by photographers,

that they were also being
touched and grabbed in fittings,

and that other people
in the Victoria's Secret, uh, organization

were making comments,

or getting a little too handsy
with the girls.

Now they had this whole
sexual harassment thing

starting to brew over their heads.

New York Times reportedly uncovered

a slew of complaints against Ed Razek

saying he acted inappropriately
on several occasions.

Other executives say they told
Leslie Wexner about this,

but nothing was done, they say.

- I don't remember
what we were talking about.

Maybe there was some kind of
MeToo thing happening in the news,

but Ed's assistant made a comment.

She said,
"If I had a dollar for every time

a sexual harassment case
came across my email, I'd be rich."

And, like, Ed laughed,
other people laughed,

and it was just like,

I felt really awkward, but I also laughed.

And it was just, like, this very
normal thing to make a joke like that.

- There was a lot of things
that were really not acceptable,

but the culture we were in then
was very different,

and you kind of had to brush things off

and almost take a blind eye to it.

- In the industry,
and also, the culture itself,

there are opportunities for people
to do very bad things.

And so, all we could do is to make sure

that the talent feel comfortable,

to let us know if something
bad happened to them.

And I can say sitting in this chair,

I've had very few models report to me

um, serious abuse.

But that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

That didn't mean it didn't happen.

No one would've ever said anything

because they wouldn't wanna
stop the cash stream.

And the worst thing is,
you know, years later,

you hear, you know,
I hear from agents,

"Oh, we all knew he did this
and we all know she did that.

"And we all... But, you know,
we just turned our heads

because we made so much money."

I was kinda shattered myself
to think like,

"Wow, I can't believe, like,
you knew you were sending

"models to these people,

and, you know, just hoping
that something wouldn't happen."

It was really, um...
The complicity was shocking.

In 2006, Epstein's abuse of women,

particularly underage girls,
came to light.

He got caught.

There were two very small
Palm Beach Post articles

that basically just stated the facts.

He was arrested, his name,
his address, and why he was arrested,

solicitation of prostitution, period.

- The relationship between
Wexner and Epstein

was, was really pretty unknown, publicly.

So, Wexner didn't have to answer
for this relationship

and continued to operate
with Epstein under the radar.

- Les Wexner removed his,
uh, power of attorney,

but this didn't occur until December 2007,

more than a year later.

- Wexner is the CEO
of a publicly traded company,

and his closest advisor

has been arrested on really lurid charges.

And you have to wonder
why the delay in severing ties.

In my reporting, the only way
I could get to the bottom of it

was to try to talk to people
who knew Wexner well.

And... all they could do was say that

Epstein had to have some
kind of hold over Wexner.

- The end result was a lot of nothing.

It was a slap on the wrist.

After 18 months
in the Palm Beach Detention Facility,

Epstein'll serve another 12 months
house arrest at his Palm Beach home.

An arrangement enjoyed by

how many other convicted sex offenders?

He had in his tent

some of the wealthiest men in the world,

included a member
of the Royal family in Prince Andrew,

that he was able to acquire through
his relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell.

It was also two U.S. Presidents,
Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

In a 2002 magazine article,

Trump called Epstein a terrific guy,

adding, "It is even said he likes
beautiful women as much as I do,

and many of them are on the younger side."

- Nobody paid much attention
to the Florida conviction.

There's some brief headlines
and then it goes away.

Jeffrey Epstein continued his lifestyle.

And pretty much said
after the Florida conviction,

this was, uh, nothing worse
than stealing a bagel.

- They were business associates,
at the very least,

friends, probably, additionally,
for over 20 years.

It's a long time... not to become aware

that someone's behavior
is not what it should be.

There are times when
I think I've made decisions

that I'm not proud of... in hindsight,

but I don't think I've made a decision

consciously in the moment
where I said if, you know,

"If this were on the front page
of the newspaper, would I be embarrassed?"

And, and I think that, uh, you know,

in, in a, in a tough business world
or a tough world,

I think you can make
decisions that are tough,

but that have, um, moral integrity.

Now, that moral integrity and compass,

your, your moral integrity,
your ethical moral compass

has a lot of judgments.

- My experience in reporting
on other sort of moguls and billionaires,

they're all secretive to some degree,
they all want some level of privacy,

but Wexner is one of the most.

It begs the question why,

when there are questions
that he would do well to answer,

that he has avoided entirely.

All the work that he put
into building this fortune,

and this business and these brands.

There's a cloud over all of it now.

Les Wexner is in some hot water.

A civil complaint has been filed
against Wexner, the founder of L Brands.

- Victoria's Secret founder
Les Wexner in the headlines again,

being sued by one of the shareholders
of the company he founded.

Some see the L Brand image tarnished

following scrutiny
over Wexner's relationship

with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

An investigation is underway in Paris

after a close associate
of Jeffrey Epstein,

modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel,

was found dead this morning
in his prison cell.

- This is astounding to hear
considering the fact

that he died exactly the same way,
uh, Jeffrey Epstein did.