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Transcript: Epstein Survivor Lisa Phillips on The Shade Room Podcast

Here is the full transcript of former model and Epstein survivor Lisa Phillips’ interview on The Shade Room Podcast with host Thembi Mawema, November 6, 2025.

Meeting Jeffrey Epstein

THEMBI MAWEMA: Hey, roommates. It’s your girl, Thembi. And today I’m joined by Lisa Phillips, who is a former model who survived Jeffrey Epstein’s global trafficking network. Today she’s stepping into the shade room to tell us a little bit more about her story. From victim to voice and silence to leadership. Lisa, thank you so much for being here with us today.

LISA PHILLIPS: Thank you so much for having me.

THEMBI MAWEMA: How are you doing?

LISA PHILLIPS: I’m super excited.

THEMBI MAWEMA: Yes. I’m happy to have you here. All right, so give me a little bit about your background as a supermodel. The year 2000. You’re doing your thing. You’re killing it. You’re ambitious, and you link up with one of your friends.

LISA PHILLIPS: So, like you said, I was a model in New York, and I was living my dream. That’s what I had always wanted to do since I was, like, 13 or 14 years old. You know, the 90s was that time when everyone wanted to be a model, and I just pursued that dream pretty hard after high school.

I graduated high school in Belgium, actually. My father was in the service. He worked at NATO. And I left Belgium and went straight to Miami Beach. It was like the heyday, you know, late 90s. And started working my way up in the business.

I worked in South Africa for a while, and I worked in Greece and Louisiana, and then I was ready for New York. Moved to New York at the tail end of 1999. And then in early 2000, I had booked a really special job. It was a cover of a magazine and a spread with another model from my agency. And I was really excited about it, and we flew to Tortola in the British West Indies.

THEMBI MAWEMA: Fancy.

LISA PHILLIPS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it just was a great time in my life. And, you know, the other young model was just like, “I have a friend who owns an island close by. We have a day off tomorrow, and, you know, let’s go hang out.”

And so we had talked to the crew, and they said it was okay. Ironically, it’s kind of weird. They let us go, but we were able to leave for the day.

THEMBI MAWEMA: So tell me what the island was like itself and what the process even was to get you guys there.

Arriving at Little St. James

LISA PHILLIPS: Okay. So there was a boat that was sent for us. So we took the boat across from Tortola to Little St. James. And normal day on the island, it was very beautiful. You know, we played in the water a little bit in the ocean. There was a trampoline in the ocean. Yeah, it was really cool.

And then we went to the pool area and there was an older man there with some younger girls. I noticed they were all blonde, and the girl who brought me also was blonde. And we just hung out and had a good time.

Then we went to dinner and we all sat at a table and we had some really delicious food and enjoyed the evening. And that was the moment where I met Jeffrey Epstein.

THEMBI MAWEMA: So at this point, nothing seemed suspicious. It was just like, we’re girls living our best lives. How cool. So at what point did that setting change for you?

LISA PHILLIPS: Well, I mean, older men and younger girls, this is something you see a lot in the modeling industry. It was prevalent back then. So, I mean, it’s always like, that’s kind of odd. But I didn’t think anything of it. I certainly didn’t think I was in any danger or anything. I was just enjoying the time away from work.

And so everything was fine the entire day up until the evening time. And then I went into the quarters area where we were going to stay that night because they couldn’t send us back to the other island until the morning. So I was just hanging out with the other girl, just on the bed and just talking and stuff. That’s when someone knocked on the door and it was one of the other young girls from the pool.

THEMBI MAWEMA: From the pool.

LISA PHILLIPS: Yeah, and from dinner. And she just said, “Jeffrey’s ready for your massage.” And so at that point, that was the first I had heard of a massage. I didn’t know anything about this man that I met except for that he was very charming and very nice, and he paid a lot of attention to me at dinner and asked me a lot of questions.

THEMBI MAWEMA: And what kind of questions did he ask you?

The Predator’s Tactics

LISA PHILLIPS: Well, he was really good at getting kind of into my psyche. Where are you from? And what’s your family life like? And what’s your relationship with your father, your siblings, and what are your dreams and aspirations? And all these questions that most men don’t ask you.

Most men talk about themselves most of the time, but this one was honed in on, “Who are you? I want to know more about you. And you’re so interesting.”

THEMBI MAWEMA: So you’re feeling special.

LISA PHILLIPS: Yeah, it was super special to have this, you know, older, interesting, definitely smart man interested. But it was more like a mentor kind of thing. You know, it wasn’t like a playboy or, you know, those type of vibes.

And as a child, I had grown up in Oxford, England, and he found that really interesting. And then, you know, I just felt really comfortable with him.