Trump and Epstein: the friendship and then the breakup

Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein had a long-standing bond, as demonstrated by numerous photos and testimonies . The friendship between the US president and the billionaire, who committed suicide in prison after being arrested for child sex trafficking, dates back to the 1990s and lasted over 15 years, as Trump himself stated in a 2002 interview with New York Magazine. CNN exclusively published photos of Epstein attending the then-entrepreneur's wedding to Marla Maples in 1993 at the Plaza Hotel. The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, published a letter congratulating Epstein on his 50th birthday, complete with drawings and sexual innuendos, which the US president, however, claims he never wrote. Trump reportedly flew several times on the Lolita Express, the nickname of his billionaire friend's private jet, and it is where he reportedly had his first contact with his future wife, Melania. Epstein himself revealed this in an interview with Michael Wolf in 2017, published shortly before last November's presidential election. It was released years after his split with Trump, which occurred in 2004 over a dispute related to a real estate deal. The tycoon, who was first convicted of child abuse in 2008, described his former friend as a ruthless man with dissolute morals, with a particular penchant for cheating and sleeping with his best friends' wives. Trump has always denied, and there is no evidence to the contrary, having been on Epstein's private island in the Virgin Islands. This is where many of the crimes and abuses of which the tycoon, who took his own life in prison in 2019, was accused allegedly took place.