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| - Fact Check
A photograph is frequently shared on social media that appears to show convicted sex trafficker and former Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell watching as former U.S. President Bill Clinton walked his daughter, Chelsea, down the aisle at her wedding. Then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her mother, was also in attendance but is out of frame in the picture.
It's true that this is a real photograph. It's available on the Getty Images licensing website. It has not been doctored and the woman who is circled below in film director Adam McKay's 2019 tweet truly is Maxwell:
A Resurgence in April 2022
The photograph of Maxwell at Clinton's wedding received a wave of new shares in April 2022 following news that Tesla CEO Elon Musk was buying Twitter:
The picture was being reshared in response to other social media users (who presumably dislike Musk) sharing a real photograph of him standing near Maxwell at a public event. The photograph of Musk and Maxwell was captured at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in 2014. Musk later tweeted that he didn't know her and that she had "photobombed" him.
Attendees at Chelsea Clinton's Wedding
According to BBC.com, Chelsea married investment banker Marc Mezvinsky at the Astor Courts estate in New York on July 31, 2010:
A no-fly zone was in place above the Hudson valley and nearby roads were closed as guests arrived in limousines.
The television star, Oprah Winfrey, film director Steven Spielberg, Hollywood actor Tom Hanks and singer Barbra Streisand are reportedly among the 500 guests.
...
Earlier, actors Ted Danson and his wife Mary Steenburgen told reporters in the town of Rhinebeck, where many of those invited are staying, that they were both excited about attending the ceremony.
Maxwell in Attendance
Weeks prior to the wedding, on June 18, 2010, New York Magazine's Intelligencer reported that Chelsea purportedly had a firm policy on who was to be invited. According to the article, "bride-side sources" said that Chelsea "instituted a strict no-strangers policy" and that "she must personally know every invitee."
Years later, in 2019, Politico published that "a person familiar with the relationship" said that, prior to the 2010 wedding, Chelsea had become close with Maxwell, something that a spokesperson for Clinton later disputed:
[Maxwell's] family knew Trump before Epstein arrived on the scene, and she continued to socialize with Chelsea Clinton after Epstein was jailed on sex offenses.
Maxwell first grew close with the Clintons after Bill Clinton left office, vacationing on a yacht with Chelsea Clinton in 2009, attending her wedding in 2010, and participating in the Clinton Global Initiative as recently as 2013, years after her name first emerged in accounts of Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse.
“Ghislaine was the contact between Epstein and Clinton,” a person familiar with the relationship said. “She ended up being close to the family because she and Chelsea ended up becoming close.” Lawyers for Maxwell did not respond to requests for comment, and a spokesperson for Clinton disputed the idea that the two women were ever close.
The reference to Epstein being "jailed on sex offenses" referred to his previous time behind bars in 2008 and 2009, prior to the 2010 wedding. A secret plea deal that was reached in 2007 required Epstein to serve 18 months in jail, followed by 12 months of house arrest. He ended up leaving jail after around 13 months. At the time, reports said there were "roughly" 40 girls who had been identified as victims.
On Aug. 10, 2019, after Epstein was arrested again on sex trafficking charges, he was later found dead in his jail cell. An autopsy ruled that it was a suicide by hanging. A wave of new conspiracy theories began following his death.
We previously published a fact check about a picture of Epstein with former President Clinton. It also was an authentic photograph. The picture had been published in a digital copy of the March 2003 edition of Vanity Fair:
In sum, yes, Maxwell was in attendance at Chelsea Clinton's wedding and was photographed in the background behind the Clinton family.
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