Inside RHONY Carole Radziwill’s friendship with convicted sex-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell
She was the photographer for her book
Carole Radziwill, who stars on The Real Housewives of New York, has just spoken out regarding her connection to Jeffrey Epstein and her friendship with his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. They used to be friends, so how does the RHONY’s Carole Radziwill know Ghislaine Maxwell?
Carole has said in an interview with The New York Times in March 2026 that she was friends with Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex offender and Epstein associate. She said that they were friends for “five or six years” back in the early 2000’s and “never knew” Jeffrey Epstein.
Carole has been running in elite social circles for decades. She was married to the late Anthony Radziwill, who is the son of Lee Radziwill, who is the sister of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Polish prince Stanislaw Albrecht Radziwill.
Carole and Ghislaine first became friends after Anthony died in 1999. She had visited London and didn’t know anyone in the city. Carole and Ghislaine had a mutual friend who connected the two during Carole’s time in London.
“So randomly, I get a phone call from Ghislaine Maxwell, who I never had heard of, didn’t know, and she said, ‘Our friend, Lisa, told me to call you … I know a lot of people in London, and I want to make sure you’re OK and you have things to do.’ And it was very nice,” Carole explained on the Juicy Scoop podcast back in 2020.
View this post on Instagram
They didn’t meet then in London, however. It wasn’t until a movie screening that Carole met Ghislaine. “And then we got to be friendly for a few years,” she said on the podcast.
Carole is named in the Epstein Files multiple times, one time reading: “Names that stand out in this book are Carole Radziwill and Jean Luc Brunel.” It then goes on to reference Ghislaine’s involvement in Carole’s memoir she published in 2005. She was credited as the photographer for the back-cover photograph on the book, What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love.
Carole maintains that she never actually knew Jeffrey personally, telling Heather, “I was at one party, like a cocktail party with a lot of people, that I think he was at… I didn’t meet him other than to say, ‘Hi, nice to meet you.'”
So, she was around Jeffrey socially, but was never actually close with him. Carole was, however, friends with Ghislaine for a few years before everything came to light regarding their crimes.
View this post on Instagram
Carole has since shared her thoughts on their relationship in a Q and A with Bravo host Andy Cohen. “Me and many, many, many more people found our names in these files, and it’s not something I shy away from because I think really it’s important to talk about it. It’s important to be transparent,” Carole admitted.
“Obviously I didn’t know anything, as no one, you know, 20 years ago would have known anything,” she continued. “It’s hard to think that someone you knew that long ago, and even called a friend at some point, was a horrible, horrible person, doing horrible things.”
Carole said that at first, with it airing on RHONY, she was “really nervous.” However, she ultimately thinks that it was “an opportunity” to talk about it. “There are real victims and survivors that were brave enough to really stand up to these very, very powerful people.”
For all the latest reality TV cast member news, scandals, gossip and updates – like Reality Shrine on Facebook.