Jeffrey Epstein had “complete control” over Ghislaine Maxwell from almost the moment they met, even ordering her to fetch him chicken soup when he was sick, a pal of the disgraced British socialite told The Post.
“She’s a kind of a victim of [Epstein],” said the friend, who called Maxwell’s relationship with Epstein “a tragic story.”
“If you ask any psychiatrist, [they will tell you] there are bad marriages where you will do anything for the person you’re with. … I feel like yelling at her. ‘Ghislaine, for God’s sake, why? WHY?’ It was about money, the glamor and the lifestyle.”
Ghislaine was “already a damaged, broken girl,” when she arrived in New York and met Epstein, said her friend, who has known Maxwell since the 1990s.
“She came to United States after the horrific death of her father, whom she adored, her brother went to jail, the mother was freaking out and [the British government] had just took the big house she grew up in away.
“She used to sit and cry on her sofa and say, ‘They even took the silver spoons,’” the friend recalled.
Then she met Epstein.
“He saw this attractive, broken bird who was very smart, very entertaining and he thought, ‘That’s the woman who could do a lot for me,’” the friend said.
Epstein started exerting severe control over Maxwell from the beginning — just like her father had when she was growing up, according to Maxwell’s friend.
“One day,” the friend recalled, “Jeffrey wasn’t feeling well. [We] were having a meeting and he called her and said, ‘You have to get the chicken soup from the deli on Third Avenue for me.'”
Maxwell apparently protested, telling him, “Jeffrey — but you have all this staff [who can do it],” to which Epstein replied, “No you have to bring it,” the friend said.
“I remember thinking this girl is being brainwashed, controlled,” the friend added. “I saw that happening. That power he had on her.”
Maxwell became “totally obsessed” with her then-lover Epstein — during and after their affair, they said.
The former high society hostess was arrested this week in New Hampshire after being in hiding since Epstein’s death in a Manhattan jail last year.
She is accused of procuring and grooming girls as young as 14 for Epstein and on Friday, one woman filed suit against Maxwell claiming the socialite raped her “up to 30 times — starting when she was just 14 years old and continuing until she became pregnant with Jeffrey Epstein’s child.”