Marina Lacerda, a woman who was a victim of convicted sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein when she was a young teenager, spoke out against right-wing podcaster Megyn Kelly’s bizarre remarks about the ages of the late financier’s victims.
Amid controversy around the Trump administration’s handling of Epstein’s case files, Kelly sparked backlash last week when she claimed to know someone close to the case who told her the convicted sex trafficker “was not a pedophile.”
“This is this person’s view, who was there for a lot of this, but that he [Epstein] was into the barely legal type. Like, he liked 15-year-old girls,” Kelly said. “And I realize this is disgusting. I’m definitely not trying to make an excuse for this. I’m just giving you facts. That he wasn’t into like, 8-year-olds, but he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passerby.”
Lacerda reacted to Kelly’s remarks on Alex Wagner’s “Runaway Country” podcast Thursday, saying, “I want to laugh, and I’m so sad that she even said that.”
“It’s like she almost wanted to make it OK,” Lacerda told the MSNBC contributor. “Like, ‘It’s not like they’re 8-year-olds,’ you know.”
Lacerda emphasized that the files’ release is important to victims like her to gain clarity, noting that she cannot recall precisely when Epstein’s abuse began.
“I don’t even think I was 14, I think I was 13,” she said.
She went on, “When I talked to the survivors, we were all lost. We need this for clarity, for a healing process. It is very important.”
Lacerda concluded her interview with a message to Kelly, telling her, “You have such a big platform. Please don’t do that.” She later advised the right-wing podcaster to “try to do a little research.”
“Don’t say that a 14-year-old is not like an 8-year-old. Um, the capacity of a woman and even a man’s brain is not even fully developed at that age,” Lacerda said. “Please, please don’t do that. Don’t try to make it, don’t normalize the fact that we weren’t 8 years old.”
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.