Lord Peter Mandelson has claimed he was kept in the dark about the full horror of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes because he is gay.
The former British Labour Party powerbroker was sacked as UK ambassador to the United States last year after it emerged he had urged the financier to fight for early release from prison.
Disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and Lord Peter Mandelson.Credit: AP
Mandelson claimed that because of his sexuality, he was “kept separate from what [Epstein] was doing in the sexual side of his life”.
Despite having previously described him as his “best pal”, he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that he had been “at the edge of this man’s life”.
In his first interview since losing his job, Mandelson refused to apologise to Epstein’s victims for writing to him after his conviction for sex offences, claiming he was not culpable for any of Epstein’s criminal activity.
The BBC drew criticism from senior Labour figures, who branded the interview a “slap in the face” for Epstein’s victims, while a cabinet minister said Mandelson had been guilty of “deep naivety”.
Mandelson, when asked whether it was the case that he was never offered sexual favours by Epstein because he was gay, replied: “Possibly, some people will think that because I’m a gay man, I was insensitised, or I wasn’t attuned to what was going on.”
‘Did you really think that if I knew what was going on and what he was doing with and to these vulnerable young women, that I’d have just sat back, ignored it, moved on?’
Lord Mandelson, Labour peer and former British ambassador in Washington
”I think the issue is that because I was a gay man in his circle, I was kept separate from what he was doing in the sexual side of his life”.
He continued: “I mean, he in a sense had three buckets of people in his life, the business and the financial, the political and the academic, and then what he was doing with young women.
“It’s possible that some people crossed over, but I didn’t, and I think probably the reason I was separate from the third of those is because I’m gay.”
Mandelson’s sexuality was made public by Matthew Parris, a Conservative MP, on the BBC program Newsnight in 1998.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer sacked Mandelson in September 2025 after emails between the peer and Epstein emerged, showing his friendship with the paedophile was much deeper than he had previously admitted.
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Epstein was convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute, for which he served 13 months in custody.
It later emerged that he had procured a large number of underage girls who were subjected to repeated rape and sexual violence.
Emails published earlier in 2025 showed that in 2003 Mandelson had described Epstein as his “best pal”, while in a subsequent message written in 2008, after Epstein’s conviction, he wrote: “You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release and be philosophical about it as much as you can … Your friends stay with you and love you.”
In September, the US House of Representatives’ oversight committee published a 2003 letter from Mandelson in which he described Epstein as his “best pal” and wrote about how he had met his “interesting” friends.
However, while insisting that he was “at the edge of this man’s life”, on Sunday Mandelson also said Epstein’s lawyer had “spent a lot of time” trying to persuade him of the paedophile’s innocence.
The peer said that as a result, he had believed Epstein had been “falsely criminalised”, saying: “I believed his story and that of his lawyer, who spent a lot of time trying to persuade me of this, because I did go into it, that he had been falsely criminalised in his contact with these young women.”
Mandelson said his decision to stand by Epstein was “a most terrible mistake on my part.
“I believed the story he told in 2008 in his first indictment in Florida. I accepted his story, and I wish I hadn’t,” he said. “I gave my support to somebody because I believed what he was telling me, and it was misplaced loyalty.”
Excerpts from emails sent from Peter Mandelson to Jeffrey Epstein released by US Congress last year. Credit:
He added: “I can say it to you categorically, I never saw anything in his life when I was with him, when I was in his homes, that would give me any reason to suspect what this evil monster was doing is preying on these young women.
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“Did you really think that if I knew what was going on and what he was doing with and to these vulnerable young women, that I’d have just sat back, ignored it, moved on and said, ‘OK, that’s his life?’, he said.
“Do you think I’d have written emails like that if I had had any knowledge or suspicion of what he was doing?”
The peer denied he had misled Starmer by not revealing the true extent of his friendship with Epstein, saying he did not even have access to the “toe-curling” emails he had sent.
“The emails that were published came as a huge surprise and a huge shock to me, not just to them,” he said. “They no longer existed on my server I had long since disused. I was unable to share emails with them that I didn’t recall and I didn’t possess.”
‘I was not culpable’
Mandelson refused to apologise to Epstein’s victims for continuing his relationship with the abuser after his conviction, saying he would apologise only for the system having failed to protect them.
“I want to apologise to those women for a system that refused to hear their voices and did not give them the protection they were entitled to expect,” he said. “That system gave him protection and not them.
“If I had known if I was in any way complicit or culpable, of course, I would apologise – but I was not culpable.
“I was not knowledgeable of what he was doing, and I regret, more regret to my dying day, the fact that powerless women were not given the protection they were entitled to expect.”
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Mandelson also told the BBC he never saw any young women when he visited Epstein’s homes, saying: “There were no girls on the island when I was there.
“Whether on the island or in New York, or – there was another occasion when I stayed at a ranch in New Mexico – the only people who were there were the housekeepers. Never were there any young women or girls or people that he was preying on or engaging with in that sort of ghastly, predatory way.”
Mandelson, who served in the cabinet under former Labour prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, dodged the question of whether he deserved to be sacked by Starmer.
“I understand why I was sacked,” he said. “The prime minister found himself in the middle of what must have seemed to him a sort of thermonuclear explosion.”
Mandelson also gave his backing to Starmer and said he was sure he would “continue to give the leadership he is” giving at present.
He said he would not be returning to public office, but added: “I don’t know what’s next, but I’m not going to go and just sort of disappear and hide, that’s not me. I will find something useful to do.”
Following the interview, Heidi Alexander, the British transport secretary, criticised his failure to say sorry to Epstein’s victims.
She said: “I think what we saw there in that interview was, at best, deep naivety from Peter Mandelson, and I think it would have gone a long way for the women who were subjected to the most appalling treatment at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, for Peter to have apologised.”
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BBC criticised for giving peer airtime
Other senior Labour figures also criticised the BBC’s decision to give Mandelson a platform, accusing the broadcaster of “aiding his swift rehabilitation”.
Baroness Hazarika, a former Labour adviser, said the interview was “a slap in the face to Epstein victims, adding: “[Lord Mandelson] was part of the system of male power which enabled and dismissed abuse.
“The media went after Mandelson correctly in my view. Now the media is aiding his swift rehabilitation and PR.
“We rightly were disgusted by the grooming gangs scandal. Would we platform the mate of an Asian grooming gang leader? Of course not.
“It’s almost like the victims of child sex abuse, often female, are cynically used until the story moves on. Powerful men are always to be excused.”
John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, said: “When Keir Starmer appointed Mandelson, I said publicly it was a serious error of judgment.
“I’ve always been a supporter of the BBC in its role as a public broadcaster, but the decision to invite Mandelson onto the Kuenssberg program calls into question once more its judgment.”
Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader in Westminster, posted on social media that Sir Keir should have stripped Lord Mandelson of his peerage “months ago”.
“The fact this hasn’t happened is a stain on this deplorable Labour government,” he said.
Responding to criticism, a BBC spokesman said: “This was Lord Mandelson’s first interview since losing the role of US ambassador last year.
“As well as hearing about his insights on US foreign policy, he was repeatedly challenged about his links to Jeffrey Epstein.”
