Wikipedia Deep Dive

Les Wexner

14 min read

The Retail King and His Shadow

In the strange taxonomy of American billionaires, Les Wexner occupies a peculiar position. He built one of the most recognizable lingerie brands in history, shaped how millions of women think about their bodies, and remained almost entirely unknown to the public—until his name became inextricably linked with Jeffrey Epstein.

This is a story about retail genius, about the alchemy of turning a five-thousand-dollar loan into a multi-billion-dollar empire. But it's also a story about what happens when a reclusive businessman hands extraordinary power to a financial manager who turns out to be a monster.

The Education of a Merchant

Leslie Herbert Wexner was born on September 8, 1937, in Dayton, Ohio. His parents, Bella and Harry, were both of Russian-Jewish origin—his father born in Russia, his mother in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn before moving to Columbus as a toddler. They ran a small clothing store called "Leslie's," named after their son.

The young Wexner showed early signs of the analytical mind that would later build an empire. At sixteen, he won a minor award for an essay titled "Why I Love and Respect Judaism." He considered studying architecture before pragmatism won out, and he graduated from Ohio State University in 1959 with a business degree. He joined the Air National Guard and briefly attended law school before the gravitational pull of retail proved too strong.

Here's where the origin story gets interesting.

Wexner started working at his parents' store so they could take a vacation. While they were away, he did something that would define his entire career: he analyzed the sales data and inventory, identifying which items made money and which just took up shelf space. When his father returned and refused to adjust the merchandise mix based on this analysis, Wexner decided to prove his theory the hard way.

He would open his own store.

The Birth of The Limited

In 1963, Wexner's aunt lent him five thousand dollars. He matched it with a bank loan and opened a store in the Kingsdale Shopping Center in Upper Arlington, a Columbus suburb. He called it The Limited—not because of its size, but because of its focus. The store sold only moderately priced items that moved quickly: skirts, sweaters, shirts. Nothing that would sit on racks gathering dust.

This seems obvious now. It was revolutionary then.

The prevailing retail wisdom said you needed variety. You needed to be a department store or at least mimic one. Wexner bet that women would prefer a store that did one thing extremely well over a store that did everything adequately. He was right.

Within a year, his parents closed their store and joined him. By 1976, there were a hundred Limited stores across the country. In 1969, he took the company public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol LTD.

Building the Empire

A. Alfred Taubman, the shopping mall magnate, became Wexner's mentor in the mid-1960s. The partnership made sense: Taubman built the malls, Wexner filled them with stores. Robert Morosky believed in Wexner so completely that in 1972 he sold his house, moved into a small apartment, and joined The Limited as Vice Chairman of the board. Morosky would later resign in 1987 and spend decades criticizing Wexner's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein—but that part comes later.

The 1980s brought aggressive expansion. In 1978, Wexner took on significant debt to purchase Mast Industries, an importer that gave him crucial supply chain advantages over competitors. In 1982, he spent $105 million to acquire Lane Bryant, a chain specializing in plus-sized clothing that came with $30 million in debt.

That same year, he made an acquisition that would define his legacy.

Victoria's Secret

Roy Raymond had founded Victoria's Secret in 1977 with a simple insight: men felt embarrassed buying lingerie for their wives and girlfriends in department stores. He created boutiques designed to feel like Victorian boudoirs, making the shopping experience feel sophisticated rather than seedy.

When Wexner bought the company from Raymond, the founder described him as "very guarded," adding: "When I met him, it was as if he met the devil."

Six months later, Raymond was facing bankruptcy. He called Wexner again, this time offering to sell Victoria's Secret outright. The exact terms remain undisclosed—some combination of stock and about a million dollars in cash.

By 1992, Victoria's Secret was worth an estimated one billion dollars.

Wexner transformed the brand from a handful of mall stores into a cultural phenomenon. The annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, overseen by marketing executive Ed Razek, became one of the most-watched events on television. Supermodels became "Angels." The brand shaped—critics would say distorted—how an entire generation of women thought about their bodies and what "sexy" meant.

At its peak, L Brands (as Wexner's conglomerate came to be known) included Victoria's Secret, Pink (the Victoria's Secret line aimed at teenagers), Bath & Body Works, Henri Bendel, The White Barn Candle Company, and La Senza. He had spun off or sold Lane Bryant, Abercrombie & Fitch, Lerner New York, The Limited Too, Structure, and Express.

In 2012, CNN Money called him the longest-serving CEO of any Fortune 500 company. Harvard Business Review ranked him eleventh on their list of the world's best-performing CEOs in 2015.

The Unsolved Murder

Before we get to Jeffrey Epstein, there's another dark chapter in the Wexner story—one that reads like a crime novel and remains unsolved to this day.

In 1985, Arthur Shapiro was a prominent Columbus lawyer assigned to the Les Wexner account at his firm. Shapiro was scheduled to appear before a grand jury to testify about an illegal tax scheme he'd been involved in—a scheme that had nothing to do with Wexner.

Days before his testimony, Shapiro was killed in what witnesses described as resembling a Mafia hit.

Because of potential connections between Shapiro and organized crime, and Shapiro's role as Wexner's attorney, police investigated whether any of Wexner's businesses had mob ties. A police report—later called "The Arthur Shapiro Murder File"—found some tenuous connections in certain Wexner ventures like a trucking company. A local police chief characterized the theories as "highly speculative and not based on hard evidence."

The main suspect was Berry Kessler, Shapiro's business partner. Kessler had a documented history of murdering his business associates by hiring Mafia hit men. He was involved with Shapiro in the tax schemes, had clear motive to silence him before his grand jury testimony, and was seen giving a large amount of cash to someone matching witness descriptions of the killer the day after the murder.

Kessler died in prison in 2005, serving time for a different murder. He never confessed to killing Shapiro. The case officially remains open.

Enter Jeffrey Epstein

In 1987, Les Wexner hired Jeffrey Epstein as his financial manager.

This relationship would last twenty years. It would ultimately overshadow everything Wexner built.

Epstein was a peculiar figure—a college dropout who had taught at the elite Dalton School in Manhattan, then worked at Bear Stearns before striking out on his own as a financial advisor. He claimed to only work with clients worth at least one billion dollars. According to Bloomberg, Wexner was Epstein's "main client" and, for much of their relationship, apparently his only significant one.

This raises an obvious question that has never been satisfactorily answered: How does a money manager who claims to only work with billionaires build a nine-figure fortune while managing essentially one client's money?

In July 1991, Wexner granted Epstein power of attorney—an extraordinary level of trust that allowed Epstein to act on Wexner's behalf in virtually any financial or legal matter. He also made Epstein a trustee of the Wexner Foundation.

Wexner purchased a Manhattan townhouse, the Herbert N. Straus House, in 1989. After Wexner married Abigail Koppel in 1993, he transferred the property to Epstein sometime in the mid-1990s. Epstein would run his operation from this house—conducting whatever business he was conducting from a building that had belonged to one of America's wealthiest retailers.

Southern Air

In the 1990s, Wexner and Epstein became involved in relocating Southern Air Transport from Miami to Columbus.

Southern Air Transport requires some explanation. It was a cargo airline that had served as a front organization for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with ties to the Iran-Contra affair—the Reagan-era scandal involving secret arms sales to Iran and the illegal funding of Nicaraguan rebel groups. The airline had also been linked to allegations of CIA involvement in cocaine trafficking.

Southern Air transported goods related to Wexner's retail businesses. But in 1996, Customs agents discovered a hidden cocaine shipment on one of the company's planes. The airline shut down in 1998, after Wexner had received federal aid for the relocation—and just weeks before the CIA Inspector General released official findings about Contra cocaine trafficking allegations.

The significance of Wexner and Epstein's involvement with this particular airline has never been fully explained.

The Warnings

Multiple people tried to sound alarms about Jeffrey Epstein's behavior during the years he worked for Wexner.

In the mid-1990s, executives at L Brands reported that Epstein was abusing his connection to Wexner by posing as a recruiter for Victoria's Secret models. This complaint apparently did not result in any action.

In 1996, Maria Farmer contacted local and federal authorities about an assault she allegedly suffered at the hands of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell while working as an artist-in-residence on Wexner's Ohio property. Within a year, actress Alicia Arden filed a police report in Los Angeles describing how Epstein had misrepresented himself as a Victoria's Secret recruiter before another alleged assault.

Wexner has been accused of failing to act on any of these warnings.

In early 2006, Epstein was finally charged in Florida with "multiple counts of molestation and unlawful sexual activity with a minor." According to the New York Times, Wexner cut ties with Epstein eighteen months after these charges were filed.

The Reckoning

The relationship between Wexner and Epstein might have faded into footnote status—one more example of a billionaire associating with someone who turned out to be a criminal—if Epstein hadn't been arrested again in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges.

In August of that year, before Epstein died in his jail cell under circumstances that spawned a thousand conspiracy theories, Wexner addressed the Wexner Foundation with a written statement. His former financial advisor, he said, had "misappropriated vast sums of money" from him and his family. He retained Mary Jo White, a former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as his criminal defense attorney.

This raised more questions than it answered. If Epstein had stolen from Wexner, why hadn't Wexner reported it to authorities? How much money was "vast sums"? And how does a financial manager steal from a client for years without the client noticing?

The scrutiny intensified. A group of wrestlers who were survivors of the Ohio State University abuse scandal—a separate case involving a university doctor—publicly called on officials to investigate Maria Farmer's allegations of assault on Wexner's property. They noted that Wexner and his wife Abigail were the "biggest and best-known benefactors" of Ohio State, and questioned whether this influence had suppressed investigation.

They pointed out that the chair of Ohio State's board, John Zeiger, was a close personal friend of Wexner's. Zeiger's daughter and law partner served as Wexner's attorney. Zeiger did not recuse himself from matters involving Wexner.

Wexner's legal team stalled efforts by victims to subpoena him.

In January 2021, L Brands shareholders filed a complaint in Delaware's Court of Chancery alleging that Wexner and others had created "an entrenched culture of misogyny, bullying, and harassment." The complaint stated that Wexner was aware of Epstein's abuses, which constituted a breach of his fiduciary duty to the company and damaged the brand's value. The lawsuit also named Wexner's wife, former marketing chief Ed Razek, and current board chair Sarah Nash.

L Brands settled for ninety million dollars in July 2021.

Victoria's Secret (The Song)

In 2022, a pop singer named Jax released a song called "Victoria's Secret." The lyrics include:

I know Victoria's secret, and girl, you wouldn't believe. She's an old man who lives in Ohio making money off of girls like me.

That's Les Wexner—a man who spent decades carefully avoiding the spotlight, reduced to a villain in a pop song about toxic beauty standards and the exploitation of women. A Hulu documentary that same year, "Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons," examined his relationship with Epstein at length.

For someone who once described himself as "very guarded," this was a particular kind of hell.

The Philanthropist

The Epstein association has overshadowed Wexner's extensive philanthropy, which is considerable by any measure.

In 1989, Wexner and his mother Bella were the first individuals to make a one-million-dollar personal donation to the United Way. Their names are inscribed in marble in the lobby of the United Way headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.

Wexner funded the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State, naming it for his father. In 2011, he pledged one hundred million dollars to Ohio State—allocated to the medical center, the cancer hospital, the arts center, and other programs. It was the largest gift in university history. The following year, Ohio State renamed its medical center the Wexner Medical Center in his honor.

Through the L Brands Foundation, Wexner and his company contributed over $163 million to the Columbus Foundation.

He served on the Ohio State Board of Trustees from 1988 to 1997, then again from 2005 until 2012, including a term as chair.

Jewish Identity and the Mega Group

Wexner has spoken about feeling unprepared for Jewish leadership because his family moved frequently during his childhood, preventing him from getting what he considered a proper Jewish education. In 1985, he partnered with Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman to establish the Wexner Foundation's first program, designed to educate Jewish communal leaders.

In 1991, Wexner and billionaire Charles Bronfman formed what became known as the Mega Group—a loose organization of some of America's wealthiest Jewish businessmen focused on philanthropy and Jewish issues. Members included Max Fischer, Michael Steinhardt, Leonard Abramson, Edgar Bronfman, and Laurence Tisch. The group met twice a year for seminars; in 1998, Steven Spielberg spoke about his personal religious journey.

The Mega Group inspired several philanthropic initiatives, including the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, Birthright Israel (which sends young Jewish adults on free trips to Israel), and the expansion of national Hillel (Jewish campus organizations).

The Inner Life

In a 1985 article, Wexner revealed something unexpected: he couldn't sleep well. He attributed this to what he called his "dybbuk spirit"—a term from Jewish folklore referring to a possessing spirit—which he nicknamed "shpilkes" (a Yiddish word roughly meaning restless anxiety or nervous energy).

This internal demon, he said, had been tormenting him since childhood. He credited it with driving his business ambition, his bachelor lifestyle, and his relentless work ethic. He kept music playing constantly because he couldn't stand silence.

Wexner didn't marry until he was fifty-five. One girlfriend converted to Judaism and changed her name to "Cohen" after a year of dating him. In January 1993, he married Abigail Koppel, an attorney. They have four children.

The family lives in New Albany, a planned community northeast of Columbus—one that Wexner essentially created, developing it from farmland into an affluent suburb modeled on early American architecture.

Legacy

In February 2020, at age eighty-two, Les Wexner stepped down as CEO of L Brands, transitioning to the role of chair emeritus. The company he built—the one that told women what "sexy" looked like for forty years—was struggling. Victoria's Secret had missed the cultural shift toward body positivity and inclusivity. Sales were declining. The brand had become associated with dated ideals and, increasingly, with its founder's association with a convicted sex offender.

How do you evaluate a life like this?

Wexner built something from nothing—turned a five-thousand-dollar loan from his aunt into a retail empire worth billions. He gave generously to medical research, education, and Jewish causes. He shaped American retail and American attitudes about the female body, for better and worse.

And for twenty years, he employed Jeffrey Epstein, gave him power of attorney, made him a trustee of his foundation, and—according to his own statement—allowed Epstein to steal "vast sums" without apparent consequence until the very end.

The question that haunts the Les Wexner story isn't what he knew about Epstein's crimes. It's what he allowed himself not to know, and why.

That question, like the murder of Arthur Shapiro, may never be satisfactorily answered.