Lifetime released the first trailer for the next iteration of its “Surviving” docuseries, “Surviving Jeffrey Epstein,” promising to expose new secrets from some of the women who say they were abused by him.
The four-hour doc investigates the billionaire New York financier who was accused of using his connections to the rich and famous to shield his predatory and abusive behavior with young girls. Featuring women who describe how Epstein lured underaged girls, the doc delves into the reality the survivors must now face in the wake of Epstein’s suicide behind bars.
The one-minute trailer gives a brief look at the experiences some women say they had at the hands of Epstein. One describes being “a human baton, passed from one person to another,” while another woman talks of being “groomed” to be a “personal sex slave.” A third survivor added: “The more I kept trying to resist, the more fun he was having.”
The two-part series will debut on Sunday, Aug. 9. You can watch the trailer in the video above.
Epstein was arrested last year on sex trafficking charges. Federal prosecutors said that Epstein sexually abused dozens of underage girls and paid many of them to recruit others. He died by suicide in a federal detention center in New York while awaiting trial. Earlier this month, Epstein associate and confidante Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested by the FBI on charges she conspired to recruit, groom and sexually abuse minors, some as young as 14. She has pleaded not guilty.
“Surviving Jeffrey Epstein” is being developed by Robert Friedman’s Bungalow Media + Entertainment in association with filmmakers Anne Sundberg and Ricki Stern, both of whom will direct. Journalist Christopher Mason, who has contributed to The New York Times, New York Magazine, Town & Country and Architectural Digest, is also attached to the project.
“Surviving Jeffrey Epstein” will mark the second docuseries on the late New York financier, coming after Netflix’s “Filthy Rich.” It is the second in Lifetime’s “Surviving” franchise, following “Surviving R. Kelly” and its follow-up, “Surviving R Kelly Part II: The Reckoning.”