When she left Russia, she believed she was stepping into the life she had always dreamed of.
She was young.
She worked as a model.
She dreamed of walking the world’s biggest runways.
A Dream Opportunity
One day, she met a man who told her he knew some of the most influential people in the fashion industry.
He promised her meetings.
Jobs.
A successful career.
He told her she had great potential but needed to work a little more on herself.
At first, she had no reason to doubt him.
It all seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime.
Looking Back
In an interview with the BBC, she said she now believes nothing happened by chance.
She says she had been carefully selected from the very beginning.
Slowly, new rules began to appear.
She was asked to send more and more photographs.
She was repeatedly told she wasn’t good enough.
That she had to follow instructions if she wanted to succeed.
She says that at the time, she still didn’t realize what was really happening.
On the contrary.
She believed they were helping her.
Years later, she summed up her experience with one sentence:
“I wasn’t chained up or locked in a basement. The chains were far less obvious.”
Only later, she says, did she realize she had lost almost everything.
- Her financial independence.
- Her freedom to make her own decisions.
- The people she trusted.
When Everything Changed
When she first tried to understand what was happening to her, she says it was already too late.
According to her account, the first sexual assault occurred while Jeffrey Epstein was serving a jail sentence in Florida.
She believed someone would believe her.
Instead, she says other women in his circle told her she was exaggerating and misinterpreting what had happened.
Over time, she began to doubt herself.
She questioned whether she had misunderstood everything.
She now sees this as one of the most dangerous forms of manipulation.
“I wasn’t chained up or locked in a basement. The chains were far less obvious, but they were there,” she told the BBC.
A Life Under Complete Control
She says she gradually became completely dependent on him.
She did not have her own bank account.
She could not rent an apartment on her own.
According to her, he controlled where she lived, who she spoke to, where she could go, and even the healthcare she received.
She says the women were not controlled only through financial dependence.
According to her, there were threats involving compromising photographs and videos.
She says they were pressured to write letters thanking him.
At the same time, they were turned against one another so that they would never build trust or support each other.
Anya says this is why she spent years believing there was no one she could turn to.
The Lasting Scars
One incident, in particular, has stayed with her.
She said Epstein persuaded her to have a tattoo removed through surgical excision instead of laser treatment.
She says she still bears the visible scars from that procedure today.
But, as she admits, the physical scar is not what hurts the most.
She says her greatest source of shame is that, under pressure, she also took part in bringing other young women into his circle.
“He created an entire ecosystem of abuse that served only him,” she said.
Speaking Out
After Epstein’s death in 2019, she says she finally felt there was a chance to leave that life behind.
Today, she has chosen to speak publicly about her experience—not because, as she says, she has easily moved on from the past, but because she hopes her story will help others.
She wants other women to recognize psychological manipulation, coercive control, and abusive relationships before it is too late, and to understand that asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but the first step toward freedom.
