♪ dramatic music playing ♪
[audience cheering]
- 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.
FREDERIQUE VAN DER WAL: 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.
♪ rock music playing ♪
LES WEXNER: 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.
CINDY FEDUS-FIELDS: In the late '90s,
the President of the United States
had an affair with an intern.
PERSON 1: Monica, look over here! Monica!
PERSON 2: Monica!
- And I think there was a shift
in the thinking of the American public.
REPORTER: 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.
NARRATOR: Victoria's Secret introduces Angels 2000.
CINDY: 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.
ED RAZEK: Are you from Brazil? MODEL 1: I am.
- From where? MODEL 2: Brazil.
- Are you from Brazil? MODEL 3: Yeah.
PERSON: Is there anyone left there? - Yeah, I think so.
[all laughing]
- 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.
ED: We work it constantly.
We work every aspect of this, and none, none of it's accidental.
SHARLEEN ERNSTER: We did Venn diagrams and graphs,
and we had a whole team
that just would forecast what is sexy now.
SARA ZOFKO: 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.
SHARLEEN: 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." [laughs]
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.
[people shouting "Heidi"]
[indistinct chatter]
IVAN BART: 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.
JAMES SCULLY: 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.
ALESSANDRA AMBROSIO: 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.
[drum rolls]
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.
ED: 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.
MONICA CORBIN: 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.
MINDY MEADS: 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.
LES: 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."
SHARLEEN: 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.
MICHAEL BAY: 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.
MICHAEL BAY: Men's version.
- Lots of beautiful women.
Very little clothing.
SHARLEEN: 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.
NARRATOR: Bring me to my knees.
[Christmas bells playing]
- 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.
MICHAEL GROSS: 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.
CINDY: 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.
♪ tense music playing ♪
♪
LYNDSEY SCOTT: 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.
LYNDSEY: 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.
REPORTER 1: 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.
REPORTER 2: 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... PERSON 1: Oh, wow.
- ...because I was-- PERSON 2: 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.
ASHLEY MEARS: 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.
♪
LYNDSEY: 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.
MICHAEL GROSS: 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.
REPORTER: 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.
MICHAEL GROSS: Here's a modeling agent from Paris
who had been exposed as a super creep
in 1988 by 60 Minutes.
MODEL: 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.
BARRY LEVINE: 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.
SOPHIE ALEXANDER: 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.
[applause]
CINDY: 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.
♪
REPORTER: 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.
ALICIA ARDEN: 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.
♪
GLORIA ALLRED: 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.
CINDY: 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.
♪
[bell ringing]
REPORTER: 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.
EMCEE: 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.
♪
TODD THOMAS: 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.
LINDSEY CASELLA: 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.
♪
[angelic choir singing]
HOST: I have the privilege today to introduce
a man who, um, more than anyone in Columbus needs no introduction.
Ladies and gentlemen, Leslie Wexner. [all applauding]
LES: 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.
[all laughing]
♪
- 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.
NARRATOR: 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.
NOAH KULWIN: 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.
BARRY: 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.
CONCHITA SARNOFF: 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.
♪
TIM FERAN: 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.
REPORTER: Wexner's embraced change in his personal life.
He married for the first time.
BARRY: Before the marriage,
Jeffrey Epstein made very clear to Les
that he would oversee the prenuptial agreement.
CINDY: 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.
CINDY: 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.
SARAH ELLISON: 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.
REPORTER: 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.
LES: 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.
MINDY: 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.
SARA: 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.
NARRATOR: 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.
PERSON 1: Let's go! PERSON 2: Stand by sexy delicious.
This is the one with all the, um, sweeties.
Adriana's the first one out.
♪ upbeat music playing ♪
- Come with me, girls! Come with me! Come on!
- I was wearing balloons. They were not clothes.
They were not sold in the stores.
DOROTHEA BARTH-JORGENSEN: 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.
[Justin singing]
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.
CINDY: 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.
[cheering, applause]
SARA: 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.
♪ tense music playing ♪
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."
JAMES: 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.
REPORTER: 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.
JAMES: 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.
CONCHITA: 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.
REPORTER 1: After 18 months in the Palm Beach Detention Facility,
Epstein'll serve another 12 months house arrest at his Palm Beach home.
REPORTER 2: An arrangement enjoyed by
how many other convicted sex offenders?
BARRY: 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.
REPORTER: 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.
LES: 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.
BOB KENDRICK: 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.
REPORTER 1: Some see the L Brand image tarnished
following scrutiny over Wexner's relationship
with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
REPORTER 2: 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.
♪