Chauntae Davies, a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse, has reacted to testimony from former president Bill Clinton about his past friendship with the pedophile in which he said he “wished” she had told him about her ordeal.
Appearing on a BBC Newsnight special with five other survivors Wednesday, Davies told presenter Victoria Derbyshire that she had been on a plane with Epstein and Clinton in the early 2000s on a “once-in-a-lifetime” trip to Africa on an Aids prevention mission that she said was “tainted by what was happening behind closed doors.”
Presenting her own snapshots of herself posing with the veteran Democrat, Davies said she had given him a neck massage during the trip, helped him pick out jewellery as a gift for his daughter Chelsea, and written fondly about him in her diary.
“I wrote at the time that he was kind and charismatic and humble and a great storyteller and I even remember saying that I wished he were my father,” she said. “I found him to be, for me anyway, extremely respectful and kind.”
Clinton was then shown appearing before the House Oversight Committee late last month, at which he again denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein and said of her: “I wish Chauntae had told me, I liked her, but I didn’t think it was anything unusual.
“I can’t tell you how many airplanes I’ve been on where rich people ask me to go and they had someone offering a massage. All these boats that you go on and all, they all do that. And usually I don’t do that, I’m not into this.”
Reacting to the footage, Davies said: “When I first saw that I actually said out loud, ‘I wished I had too.’ But I don’t think I even… What would he have done really? I don’t know. Could he have stopped it? I guess we’ll never know.”
Later in the program, Davies said that the legacy of her experiences at Epstein’s hands had continued to impact her throughout her adult life, ruining her marriage and leaving her paranoid about her daughter’s interactions with men.
She described triple-locking her garage door to stop intruders, checking for car bombs, and experiencing other “weird, strange fears,” explaining: “I don’t plan on quitting and I still have a lot more to say that hasn’t been said.
“I feel like there has already been people who have been silenced permanently and I don’t see why we would be left off that list.”
Asked what justice looks like to her, she answered: “Justice is to be able to… not go to bed at night feeling like the world, in a way, turned on for speaking about what I’ve been through.”
All of the women interviewed said their experiences with Epstein began with them giving him a paid massage and escalated into sexual assault.
The group was also unanimous in their belief that Epstein did not take his own life in August 2019. They maintained that the personal arrogance he displayed in their presence indicated he always believed he would get away with his crimes.
Another victim, Joanna Harrison, who had never previously come forward but had felt “forced” to do so after her name appeared in the recently-released Epstein files unredacted by mistake, said: “It’s not normal to see your abuser’s face every day for six years on TV, hear their name, you walk in a store and you see him on a magazine.
“There was once, I even went to my mailbox, and there was a flyer with his face on it in my mailbox and that was devastating for me. And so it just kind of gets to a point where you’re being suffocated, and you need to breathe, and I feel this is my way of trying to breathe.”
Lisa Phillips, a fellow survivor, recalled being abused on Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little St James, and said of him: “I think he liked the fear in our eyes, I think he liked that we were frozen, scared, and didn’t know what to do. I think he got off on that.”
She also recalled confronting Epstein about him ordering her friend to have sex with an influential friend at his New York City townhouse, to which he allegedly replied and told her: “I like to have things on people.”
“You couldn’t be friends with Jeffrey and not know what was going on,” Phillips added, dismissing a familiar claim made by many of the wealthy and famous people who once associated with him and now deny all knowledge of his predatory actions.
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