By Julie K. Brown
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a survivor of child sexual abuse whose crusade against Jeffrey Epstein led to his arrest and changed the way the criminal-justice system treats victims of sexual assault, has died by suicide, her family announced Friday. She was 41.
Giuffre, who is survived by three children, died in Australia, where she had been living for many years.
“It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia,” her family said in a statement released to the media. “She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking.”
Giuffre had been in a contentious divorce with her husband, Robert, and had recently been injured in a car accident in Australia. In a recent post on social media, she had said she was in renal failure and had days to live. She said her last wish was to see her children, with whom she was estranged. She was later released from the hospital.
Giuffre was the most prominent Epstein survivor whose legal actions against him; his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell; Epstein’s attorney, Alan Dershowitz; and Prince Andrew garnered national attention and outrage over the case.
But the pressure of going up against Goliath forces took its toll. She was often sick and was viciously attacked on social media. Despite her health struggles, she continued to champion the rights of other survivors through her non-profit, Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (SOAR).
“She was heroic and will always be remembered for her incredible courage and loving spirit,” her family said. “In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight. We know that she is with the angels.”
Born Virginia Roberts on August 9, 1983, in Sacramento, California, Virginia — whose nickname was Jenna — spent her early years in California with her parents, Lynn Trude Cabell and Sky William Roberts. She had two stepbrothers, Sky and Daniel.
Her father was a maintenance manager for apartment complexes and condo buildings in California before moving the family to Loxahatchee, Florida, when Virginia was in grade school.
She was first sexually abused at the age of 7 by a family friend, an event that she said changed her entire life.
“I went from being a very happy child to a completely different person. If you look at my school photographs, you can see the drastic change in my eyes from kindergarten to second grade,” she told the Miami Herald in a 2017 interview.
She frequently ran away from home. When she was 14, she was recruited by sex trafficker Ron Eppinger on the streets of Miami. She was later rescued by police and the FBI. She returned home and began working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s Palm Beach Country club. Her father, who worked at the club, got her the job in June 2000, when she was 16.
It was there that she met British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who brought her to meet Epstein at his mansion on El Brillo Way, a short distance from the club. Epstein hired her as a traveling masseuse —and at first she hoped that she could become a professional massage therapist.
But from the beginning, Epstein and Maxwell began sexually abusing her and trafficking her to other men. When she was 19, she fled to Thailand, where she met Robert Giuffre and married him in 2002. The couple moved to his native Australia. Initially, she led a quiet life, and had no plans to report what had happened to her.
But after giving birth to her daughter, she decided to go to the FBI in hopes of getting Epstein and other people she had been abused by arrested. U.S. authorities, however, had already given Epstein a secret plea deal, allowing him to escape serious federal charges.
VIDEO: Virginia Roberts Giuffre talks about Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein, and plans for a baby
She nevertheless mounted a crusade for justice by filing lawsuits that were settled out of court but led to new evidence against Epstein. In 2018, she was featured prominently in a Miami Herald series, Perversion of Justice, which detailed how Epstein’s lawyers worked hand in hand with the Justice Department to cover up the scope of his crimes, which led to him spending just 18 months in jail.
READ MORE: Perversion of Justice series
The series, which featured several other Epstein victims, led the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York to open a new case against the financier in 2019. Epstein was arrested in July of that year, but was found dead in his federal jail cell a month later. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging.
READ MORE: How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime
Maxwell was arrested in 2020 and prosecuted for sex trafficking. She is serving a 20-year sentence in a federal prison in Florida.
Prince Andrew, whom Giuffre had also accused of abusing her, was never charged, but he settled a lawsuit that she had filed against him for a reported $14 million in 2021.
READ MORE: Prince Andrew settles sex suit with Jeffrey Epstein accuser
More than any other figure, Giuffre fought to expose every person who had helped Epstein. Among those she accused was Dershowitz, who aggressively denied he had anything to do with Epstein’s crimes. The two were engaged in legal battles for years, but Giuffre finally settled, admitting that she might have been mistaken in identifying Dershowitz as an abuser.
READ MORE: Epstein accusers say financier flaunted his depravity — and VIP visitors had to be aware
In addition to her parents and her husband, she is survived by her three children, Christian, Noah and Emily.
If you are considering self-harm, you can call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
This story was originally published April 25, 2025 at 11:36 PM.
