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Megyn Kelly says Jeffrey Epstein was 'not a pedophile' because 'he liked 15-year-old girls'
"I realize this is disgusting."
Megyn Kelly has waded into the discourse around convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein with a creative new take.
On Wednesday's episode of The Megyn Kelly Show, the conservative political commentator referenced "somebody very, very close to this case" who knows "virtually everything" about the late financier's troubling private dealings that helped her form her own views on the matter. "Jeffrey Epstein, in this person's view, was not a pedophile," Kelly said. "This is this person's view, who was there for a lot of this, but that he was into the barely legal type. Like, he liked 15-year-old girls."
Kelly reflected, "I realize this is disgusting."
Epstein was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida in 2008, and charged with sex trafficking minors and conspiracy to sex traffic minors in New York in 2019, but died by apparent suicide in his jail cell before the commencement of trial. Since his death, troves of communications between Epstein and his famous associates — including England's Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton, and current President Donald Trump — have sketched a troubling picture of Epstein at the head of what appears to be an international operation facilitating the perpetration of child sexual abuse.
"Pedophile," the term Kelly is weighing, is not a legal term but rather a diagnostic one, however. The Diagnostic Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders defines three criteria for pedophilia: recurrent sexual fantasies about minors; acting on or incurring distress in not acting on those fantasies; the individual who possesses those fantasies is at least 16, and is at least five years older than the child or children in question.
Despite the clear alignment between the crimes Epstein has been implicated in, charged with, and convicted on, and the clinical criteria for pedophilia, Kelly still isn't decided on Epstein. "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," she said.
At the same time, according to Kelly, Epstein wanted these minors older than eight but younger than 15, but who look even younger, to also "look legal to a passerby."
She added, "I'm definitely not trying to make an excuse for this. I'm just giving you facts."
Kelly noted that her verdict on Epstein was momentarily changed when Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi, claimed her Justice Department "had tens of thousands of videos of alleged… child sexual abuse material, on his computer." Kelly said she remembered thinking, "'Oh no, he was an actual pedophile," but stated now that she doesn't "know whether it's true" because she doesn't "trust Pam Bondi's word on the Epstein matter anymore."
Further, Kelly claimed that "we have yet to see anybody come forward and say, 'I was eight, I was under 10, I was under 14 when I first came within his purview.'" For the former Fox News host, "there's a difference between a 15-year-old and a five-year-old," but in either case, "the whole thing is just disgusting."
A representative for Kelly did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly's request for comment.
https://ew.com/megyn-kelly-says-jeffrey-epstein-was-not-a-pedophile-11849343