Peggy Siegal

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Peggy Siegal
Born (1947-07-17) July 17, 1947 (age 78) [1]
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, U.S.
OccupationMedia publicist

Peggy Siegal (born July 17, 1947) is an American entertainment publicist who advertises new film releases to an audience of media providers and critics. [2] She owns the Peggy Siegal Company, based in Manhattan, which was described as one of the top 12 media marketing firms in 2018. [3] Siegal was involved in a controversy which damaged her business when it was made known to be closely tied to Jeffrey Epstein. [4]

Contents

Early life

Siegal was raised in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, in a Polish Jewish family. [5] [6] Her father owned a light bulb company. [7]

Marketing strategy

Connected with New York City's elite, Siegal organizes and hosts private events, including film screenings, to which she invites prominent guests to help the film's reception. Her services are in highest demand in the season before award nominations, in particular the Academy Awards. [8] Her reputation in the industry has been attributed, by her and others, to carefully selecting the guests she invites to these events. [2] According to Siegal, she keeps a list of 30,000 contacts divided by nationality, including filmmakers, artists, writers, and finance professionals. [8]

Jeffrey Epstein controversy

In 2011 Siegal organized an event at Epstein's mansion whose guests included notable people such as Prince Andrew, George Stephanopoulos, Katie Couric, and Chelsea Handler. [9] In July 2019, after the New York Times reported Siegal's business connection with Jeffrey Epstein, [10] [11] some of Siegal's clients, such as Netflix and FX, cancelled their contracts as a result of the Epstein scandal and larger Me Too movement. [4]

In 2025, the United States House of Representatives released documents related to Epstein, including a 2011 email exchange between Epstein and Siegal. Epstein asked Siegal to enlist the help of Arianna Huffington, co-founder and then editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post , to refute accusations of him facilitating sexual assault and to send reporters to investigate Virginia Giuffre, one of his accusers. Siegal offered to contact Huffington, but she, Huffington, and The Huffington Post denied that any such message was sent. [12] Siegal later said that she only offered to help Epstein in order to end the conversation. [13] Further releases of the Epstein files raised questions about the veracity of this denial, as multiple copy of email's from Siegal to Epstein show the evident familiarity in their relationship, ending E-mails with "xoxo Peg" and even making reference to his "Caribbean island". [14] [15] In her own defence, Siegal stated to The New York Times: "The culture before #MeToo was — 'You've done your time, now you're forgiven.'" [16]

In 2026, released emails within the Epstein files showed that Siegal had corresponded with Epstein in 2009 during a trip to Kenya. In the correspondence, she had offered to "bring a little baby back for you….or two. Boys or girls?" She also stated that she planned to pose for photographs in "mud huts" and pretend that she had "crashed the winter White House" and posed "with Obama's relatives". [17]

References

  1. ↑ Baume, Terry (November 14, 2017). "Peggy Siegal Beauty Routine 2017 | The Strategist | New York Magazine". Nymag.com. Retrieved January 6, 2020.
  2. 1 2 "A Close Look at Peggy Siegal and Her Movie Empire". DuJour. December 15, 2014. Archived from the original on March 27, 2023. Retrieved January 6, 2020.
  3. ↑ "The Most Powerful Entertainment and Media PR Firms of 2018". Observer. December 14, 2018. Retrieved January 6, 2020.
  4. 1 2 Czarnecki, Sean. "Reports: Hollywood studios walk away from Epstein-connected publicist". www.prweek.com.
  5. ↑ Peggy Siegal Sends Her Regrets vanityfair
  6. ↑ Power Publicist Peggy Siegal Compares Epstein Backlash to Living in ‘Nazi Germany’ lamag.com
  7. ↑ Netflix and FX are severing ties with Peggy Siegal, the NYC publicist who got Jeffrey Epstein into A-list events and has been called the 'best way' to make sure your movie wins an Oscar businessinsider
  8. 1 2 Williams, Alex (February 13, 2016). "Peggy Siegal, Best Hostess in a Supporting Role". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved January 6, 2020.
  9. ↑ Widdicombe, Ben (November 6, 2019). "Tarnished by Epstein Scandal, Can Power Publicist Peggy Siegal Make a Hollywood Comeback?". Town & Country. Retrieved January 6, 2020.
  10. ↑ Weiss, Philip (December 8, 2007). "The Fantasist". NYMag.com.
  11. ↑ Kantor, Jodi; McIntire, Mike; Friedman, Vanessa (July 13, 2019). "Jeffrey Epstein Was a Sex Offender. The Powerful Welcomed Him Anyway". The New York Times.
  12. ↑ Wendler, Jacob (November 13, 2025). "The 9 most shocking revelations in the Epstein docs". POLITICO. Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  13. ↑ McCreesh, Shawn (November 17, 2025). "Epstein Emails Reveal a Bygone Elite". The New York Times. Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  14. ↑ "Peggy Siegal at Centre of Epstein Files: Emails Detail Dinner With Prince Andrew and Woody Allen". Times Now. February 1, 2026. Retrieved February 5, 2026.
  15. ↑ "Epstein Files, DataSet 11, EFTA02442761.pdf | United States Department of Justice" (PDF). www.justice.gov. Retrieved February 7, 2026.
  16. ↑ Kantor, Jodi; McIntire, Mike; Friedman, Vanessa (July 13, 2019). "Jeffrey Epstein Was a Sex Offender. The Powerful Welcomed Him Anyway". The New York Times.
  17. ↑ Molot, Clara (February 3, 2026). "The 10 Things That Haunt Me From the Latest Batch of Epstein Files". Vanity Fair. Retrieved February 5, 2026.
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