Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell was born in 1961 in Maisons-Laffitte, Île-de-France, France. She is the daughter of British media proprietor Robert Maxwell and the French-born researcher of the Holocaust, Elisabeth Maxwell. In the 1980s she attended Balliol College, Oxford, and became a prominent member of London's social scene. She was arrested and charged by the federal government of the United States in July 2020 with the crimes of enticement of minors and sex trafficking of underage girls, related to her association with Epstein as his recruiter.