Newly surfaced photos reveal for the first time that Jeffrey Epstein was a guest at President Donald Trump’s star-studded wedding to Marla Maples in 1993.
The now-notorious pedophile was caught in the background of a picture taken of radio personality Howard Stern, his then-wife Alison Stern, Robin Leach of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and Swedish model Cecilia Nord.
Another photo, published exclusively by CNN this week, shows Epstein entering the wedding reception at New York City’s iconic Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned from 1988 to 1995.
The revelation that Trump invited Epstein to his wedding undercuts the president’s attempts to downplay his association with the sex offender in the 1990s and early 2000s.
At the time, Epstein was a successful financier but not a celebrity. Yet his relationship with Trump earned him an invite to an affair whose 1,000-person guest list was stacked with the wealthy, famous, and powerful of New York City’s 1990s social scene.
The city’s political elite of the era were in attendance: Mayor David Dinkins, Sen. Al D’Amato, Rep. Charles Rangel, and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.
There were also entertainment figures: legendary actress Liza Minnelli, future Trump nemesis and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, soap opera star Susan Lucci, and Stern.
Sports icons: O.J. Simpson (seven months before Nicole Brown Simpson’s murder), boxers Evander Holyfield and Joe Frazier, and boxing promoter Don King.
And business titans: Bear Stearns CEO and Chairman Alan Greenberg, billionaire investors Carl Icahn and Ronald Perelman, and Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi.
The wedding’s fame and spectacle also drew the media, including 17 television crews, 90 paparazzi, and two of New York City’s most legendary gossip columnists: Liz Smith, then of Newsday, and the New York Post’s Cindy Adams.
Maples, a model and television personality, was marrying Trump after their affair broke up his first marriage to Ivana Trump, a scandal that dominated tabloid headlines. (Maples and Trump would divorce in 1999.)
“Everyone had something to say about the wedding, which struck some people as sort of a royal wedding or what passes for one in New York,” The New York Times reported of the event at the time.
Floating unnoticed in the background of the extravagant wedding, brushing shoulders with celebrities and politicians, was Epstein. It wouldn’t be until more than 25 years later, in 2019, that the pedophile would face charges for the full scale of his depravity—before dying in his prison cell.
Asked for comment on the photos of Epstein at Trump’s wedding, the White House directed the Daily Beast to a Truth Social post reading “We had the Greatest Six Months of any President in the History of our Country, and all the Fake News wants to talk about is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax!”
Trump has faced widespread blowback, especially from his MAGA supporters, over his administration’s decision to end its investigation into the government’s files on Epstein, denying any evidence of a so-called “client list” or that Epstein was murdered.
The president has tried to dismiss the outcry over the situation by painting it as a Democratic “hoax,” but the crisis continues to stoke surging interest in Trump’s personal relationship with Epstein.
Trump has minimized his ties to Epstein, pointing to the fact that the two men had a falling out in 2004. However, before then, Trump and Epstein were friends who were repeatedly photographed together.
“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York Magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
In 2024, the Daily Beast exclusively published audio tapes recorded in August 2017 in which Epstein said that he was once one of Trump’s “closest friends.”
Over the last week, Trump has been rocked by stories demonstrating his ties to Epstein. The Wall Street Journal revealed that Trump had given Epstein a drawing of a naked woman and a note alluding to a shared “secret” for his 50th birthday. Trump has forcefully denied the story.
And on Wednesday, the Journal reported, based on White House insiders, that Attorney General Pam Bondi had informed Trump that his name appeared in the Epstein files multiple times.
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