On a floor above one of the world’s most famous hotel lobbies — where the elite of fashion and finance are annually styled for the Met Gala’s red carpet — there's a salon run by a man Jeffrey Epstein's survivors accused of grooming them.
The Mark on New York City's ultra-exclusive Madison Avenue — just six blocks from the mansion Jeffrey Epstein called home — has hosted many of the world's top A-listers.
It also hosts the man Epstein’s house manager, during a deposition to survivor Virginia Giuffre’s attorneys in 2009, listed among famous frequenters of the disgraced financier’s Palm Beach estate.
Despite his name appearing in about 1,500 Epstein File entries and in multiple related lawsuits, Frédéric Fekkai continues to live a super-luxe lifestyle of yachting and jet-setting — and the country's elite still clamor for his services.
“I saw guests at the house that were celebrities,” the house manager, Juan Alessi, said, listing off names. “Mr. Trump. That’s a celebrity. Mr. Robert Kennedy, Junior. Mr. [Frédéric] Fekkai.”
Fekkai continues to coif the curls of the very rich, some of whom spend $75,000 a night to reside in the building his salon calls home — despite two high-profile, if unsuccessful, lawsuits from Epstein survivors that claimed the celebrity stylist groomed them like "dolls."
"Both lawsuits against Mr. Fekkai have been dismissed; the last one, with prejudice," his lawyer, Joshua Perry, told Raw Story.
"As our filings show, he did nothing wrong."
Today, Fekkai’s name appears on small bottles of expensive products that multiple celebrities swear by — and also in approximately 1,500 Epstein files and at least nine federal and state court cases linked to Epstein and those who survived his abuse.
The name has also echoed in the House of Representatives, where, in July 2025, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) listed off men — including the stylist — he argued should be prosecuted in connection to Epstein's activities. Fekkai has never been charged with a crime.
But on NYC's Upper East Side, The Mark Hotel continues to boast of its association.
"The Mark is home to the world’s most famous hairstylist, Frédéric Fekkai," the hotel tells visitors to its site. “The full spectrum of services that Fekkai made famous … are all readily available to our hotel guests with a simple call to the concierge."
Representatives of the Mark Hotel did not respond to questions from Raw Story.
Johanna Sjoberg — a young woman Giuffre once recalled finding perched on then-Prince Andrew’s knee — was giving a massage when she heard the name of Fekkai, she told attorneys in a 2016 deposition.
“I heard [Epstein] call someone and say, 'Fekkai is in Hawaii,'" Sjoberg said. “'Can we find some girls for him?'”
This is just one of multiple references to Fekkai that Raw Story was able to discover in court cases seeking justice for survivors of Epstein’s abuses in the 17 years since Alessi, the house manager, named the stylist as a visitor.
Fekkai’s name appears in a 2015 court filing in a survivor’s lawsuit against the United States; court filings made in 2020 in a lawsuit against Epstein’s estate; a 2021 filing in Giuffre’s lawsuit against Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor; and two 2023 court filings from anonymous survivors’ lawsuits against Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft and JP Morgan Chase, among others.
Those filings include depositions, repeated pleas for information, the first draft of Giuffre’s memoir, and a reference to an accusation from Sarah Kellen, Epstein's former assistant, that Fekkai assaulted her — before she met Epstein — on a trip to Hawaii.
Fekkai’s spokesman denied the latter allegation in May this year.
When South African survivor Juliette Bryant sued Epstein’s estate in 2019, executors Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn refused to hand over information about Fekkai — arguing such data was irrelevant.
“It seeks information that is neither relevant to Plaintiff’s claims nor proportional to the needs of this case,” their attorneys complained.
“It is also overly broad and unduly burdensome.”
Her case against the estate settled out of court, the docket shows.
“Epstein sent me to Frédéric Fekkai,“ Bryant wrote in May of this year, alongside a photo of herself as a young girl. “To make my hair blond.”
That same month, five survivors (two of whom say they were children when Epstein abused them) sued Fekkai in New York, accusing him of enabling Epstein’s abuse as he profited from their friendship.
“Fekkai groomed the victims to look as young as possible under Epstein’s direction,” the lawsuit stated. “Epstein would direct Fekkai to bleach victims blond and groomed them like dolls into Epstein’s and other’s liking.”
One of the plaintiffs told CNN Epstein walked her over to Fekkai at a Saint-Tropez beach club and asked, “How could they make her look younger?”
Fekkai’s attorneys denied all claims in the CNN report.
Raw Story was unable to reach the plaintiffs for comment.
Fekkai’s attorneys successfully argued that the lawsuit, which claimed he and his salons helped "Epstein for over 15 years by enabling Epstein’s sex trafficking and sexual abuse of women and children," be removed from New York Supreme Court to federal court.
The New York City Council had recently passed an amendment to its Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act, creating a new 18-month window in which survivors could file civil claims about attacks that happened years ago, and allowing them to sue the entities that enabled the violence. The window covers violence that occurred before January 9, 2022, and runs through July 29, 2027.
The revival window gave survivors a better shot at success in state court, but federal judges have been divided over whether it’s valid under state law.
Fekkai’s attorneys claimed successfully that the stylist had a right to be heard in federal court because, among other reasons, he and the survivors suing him live in different states. Campaign finance records show Fekkai’s residence is in Greenwich, a ritzy Connecticut town an hour outside New York City.
The plaintiffs' attorney, Jennifer Plotkin, filed a motion voluntarily dismissing the case on June 10, 2026 — but without prejudice, which would allow the case to be brought again.
The survivors filed a new lawsuit against Fekkai in New York Supreme Court in September this year, adding two new plaintiffs and a defendant (a Fekkai stylist based in New York City) to their complaint.
Once again, Fekkai’s attorneys argued this was a “fraudulent” ploy to seek the jurisdiction and successfully moved to bump the case to federal court.
“This is a frivolous suit brought on provably false claims of fact and an incoherent legal theory,” Fekkai’s attorney, Perry, wrote in a court filing from September. “By operating a chain of salons where Plaintiffs purportedly got their hair cut — just like literally tens of thousands of other customers at those salons every year — Frédéric Fekkai somehow is accused of liability for Jeffrey Epstein's sexual violence.”
Attorneys for the survivors once again agreed to voluntarily dismiss the federal court case on Sept. 22, only this time with prejudice. In a statement, cosigned by both parties' attorneys, it was noted Fekkai made no admission or concessions of any kind.
Such courtroom battles are why Epstein survivor Kathryn Robbs is currently lobbying for the Trafficking Survivor Recovery and Accountability Act, which would establish, on the state level, the crime of benefiting from a trafficking venture and create a path for civil action.
In May, Robbs testified at the New York State Capitol that one in eight children will be sexually assaulted before their 18th birthday and that the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children received 30,000 reports of potential human trafficking in 2024.
“Trafficking is not sustained by one single actor — it is not just Jeffrey Epstein,” Robbs testified.
“It is a network including financial backers, businesses and other intermediators who often escape accountability.”
Fekkai’s financial ties to Epstein’s world have been a matter of court record since at least 2023, when anonymous survivors filed suits against two multinational banks — and submitted the same piece of evidence.
Evidence in both of those cases included a 2019 Daily Beast report on funds Les Wexner, Epstein’s most important client as a financier, poured into Fekkai’s multi-million dollar business.
In that report, representatives for both Fekkai the stylist and the brand claimed Epstein had only used the salons after the eponymous company had been sold, and Fekkai had been ignorant of Epstein’s actions.
“Frédéric is disgusted and sickened by Epstein’s activities, which no one was aware of in 2000 and 2002, when Frédéric accepted a ride on his jet,” Fekkai’s representative told the Daily Beast at the time.
“Had he been aware, he would never have boarded that plane, let alone with his 5-year old son, his son’s nanny and his girlfriend at the time.”
The Epstein Files have since revealed that the two stayed in contact for years after that — one effusive employee of Epstein’s outright declared in 2017 that Fekkai was her boss’s friend.
The files also show Fekkai asked Epstein for help housing his nanny in September 2010, one year after the financier had been released from prison after being convicted of soliciting prostitution and procuring a minor for prostitution.
“Hes [sic] at my house now,” Epstein wrote of Fekkai in November of that year. “I know [sic] him for ten years.. I helped his company form.”
Fekkai’s name also appears in emails listed in the Epstein Files about a boat trip off Saint Barthélemy in December 2010 and a film premiere of “The Great Gatsby” in May 2013.
Fekkai was invited to a birthday celebration for Epstein in January 2013 and asked if he could bring his personal masseuse to Epstein’s massage room in November 2010.
Many exchanges occurred after Epstein had been registered in New York as a sexual offender — a fact reported at the time by the New York Post in February, 2011.
Epstein was dubbed an “NYC sex creep” on the front page of the Post the same month — and a royal’s “sex offender friend” by the Daily Mail in March.
“Cool seeing you,” Fekkai emailed Epstein in December 2012.
In 2013, Fekkai suggested “coffee and catch up" and helped Epstein schedule a woman’s hair appointment, according to the files.
“What's the hair length now?” Fekkai asked. “Can she come to t=e [sic] salon tomorrow at Bendel between 9-10 am?”
That same year, Epstein connected Fekkai with Desmond Shum, a Hong Kong businessman worth millions, according to the files.
A Fekkai brand spokesperson told the Beast in 2019 that the stylist was “not involved in the salons” when Epstein’s victims were sent there, as Procter & Gamble bought Fekkai’s business for $440 million in May 2008. But the New York Times reported in 2005 that Epstein held a charge account at Fekkai for his personal assistants.
And Wexner, the billionaire client, began boosting Fekkai's business in 2004, when companies he controlled — Bath & Body Works and C.O. Bigelow — began selling the stylist's products, the Beast reported. A Wexner-backed private equity firm purchased a majority stake in Frédéric Fekkai, Inc. in 2005.
In January 2019 — by which point Fekkai had bought back his brand — Epstein's accountant Bella Klein struggled to keep track of many Fekkai receipts for service that were being sent to him.
And Fekkai twice identified Procter & Gamble as his place of work in 2014, once in a friendly email to Epstein and once in a $10,000 donation to the Republican National Committee.
The same year, Fekkai asked to use one of Epstein’s apartments on East 66th Street, shuffled his schedule to accommodate Epstein and sent him a photo from the Fekkai website.
Frédéric Fekkai (as identified by CNN) appears behind Jeffrey Epstein. (Epstein Files)
In the years that followed, every major New York City newspaper — The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily News and the New York Post's Page Six — covered the subsequent scandals surrounding Epstein following his guilty plea to soliciting prostitution and procuring a minor for prostitution.
In October 2018 — less than a year before Epstein, facing federal sex trafficking charges, would die in a Manhattan prison cell — Fekkai and Epstein shared a friendly exchange.
“Ping me when you return,” Epstein wrote. “All good?”
“Are you here this week?” Fekkai replied. “Best regards, Frédéric.”
New York City's elite has continued to regard Fekkai as the best.
Actresses Awkwafina’s and Greta Lee’s Met Gala looks in May 2024 both featured Fekkai salon products — as celebrity hair stylists Kylee Heath and Jenny Cho were quick to share with their tens of thousands of followers.
Michelle Yeoh modeled Fekkai’s products the same night as she sported a signature “'90s-inspired wet look.”
In the years since Fekkai bought back his business in November 2018 for an estimated $35 million, his name won accolades, prestigious partnerships and celebrity praise.
Graza, the company that made drizzling olive oil a thing (at least in the U.S.), joined up with Fekkai for a 2024 marketing venture and, on its website, continues to call him a “friend.”
The same year, Allure Magazine awarded Fekkai with “best hair mask.”
In 2022, Martha Stewart shared a photo of Fekkai styling her hair — and explained to Travel & Leisure in 2025 that Fekkai was “my guy.”
There is no suggestion that any of these companies or individuals were aware of allegations against Fekkai at the time.
In October 2018, as Fekkai prepared to drop millions to buy back his brand, he told “The Cut” he climbed mountain ranges in the South of France when he needed a moment of quiet and piloted helicopters as a hobby.
“What do you splurge on?” Fekkai was asked.
“Yachting, sailing trips, discovering hotel gems,” Fekkai replied. “Luxurious travel and experiences for my family.”
Juliette Bryant, the South African who sued Epstein’s estate, would spend years battling eating disorders, substance abuse, panic attacks and severe anxiety, as her lawsuit contended.
The anonymous survivor who sued Deutsche Bank, pleaded for anonymity in her complaint because she was still terrified of retribution three years after Epstein’s death.
Giuffre — whose advocacy for transparency tied Fekkai’s name to Epstein’s 17 years ago — died by suicide amid a custody battle for her children, as friend and co-author Amy Wallace told PBS.
“Her marriage had broken down,” Wallace said. “There had been allegations back and forth, and her husband had won a restraining order against her, keeping her from seeing or communicating with her kids, which was very, very difficult for her.”
In the same interview, Wallace quotes a plea Giuffre makes to readers of her memoirs, describing her inner life.
"I know this is a lot to take in, the violence, the neglect, the bad decisions, the self-harm,” Giuffre wrote.
“Imagine if a trauma reel like this played in your head all the time, as it does mine.”
Giuffre’s memoirs have been published twice — first in her court case against Epstein and secondly in “Nobody’s Girl,” published after her death.
Both versions reference Fekkai, but the formal edition’s reference is much more fleeting.
“It often seemed to me that Epstein and Maxwell behaved like actual parents,” Giuffre wrote.
“Soon, [Maxwell]’d be telling me how to do my makeup, how to dress, and where to get my hair cut (the celebrity stylist Frédéric Fekkai groomed many of the girls in Epstein's world, including me).”
“The Billionaire’s Playboy Club,” Giuffre's first version of the memoir, tells a darker narrative — one in which Giuffre is twice manipulated by Epstein with a single salon visit.
Giuffre tells readers she was being rewarded by Epstein after another girl practiced sadomasochistic acts on her with weapons.
“Jeffrey gave me a thousand dollars to go shopping in downtown Manhattan to find a classy dress,” Giuffre wrote, “on top of being sent to the exclusive beauty salon of celebrity stylist ‘Frédéric Fekkai’ for a new look.”
“It was amazing, to be pampered like royalty,” Giuffre wrote of her visit to Fekkai. “I walked out of there feeling like I had replaced a young girl with a young woman.”
But when Giuffre returned “more blond,” Epstein revealed she had in fact been groomed to attend Naomi Campbell’s birthday party in the South of France.
And after a night of drinking champagne with celebrities and royalty, the teenage girl found herself lent out to a rich man, she claimed in her book.
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