Bill Clinton has finally spoken out about his regrets surrounding the now-deceased pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. In his new memoir, Citizen: My Life After the White House, the former president, 78, called Epstein “odd” and said he wished he had never met him.
“I had always thought Epstein was odd but had no inkling of the crimes he was committing,” Clinton wrote. “He hurt a lot of people, but I knew nothing about it, and by the time he was first arrested in 2005, I had stopped contact with him. I’ve never visited his island.”
Shop now: buy Citizen: My Life After The White House on Amazon
The 76-year-old claims he had two very “brief” meetings with Epstein, one in his office in Harlem and the other in Epstein’s New York home. He also admitted in his book that the billionaire offered up his private jet to support Clinton’s foundation and that he flew on Epstein’s private jet in 2002 and 2003.
“The bottom line is, even though it allowed me to visit the work of my foundation, traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward,” said Clinton. “I wish I had never met him.” Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute back in 2009. He was arrested again in 2019 on sex trafficking charges and died in a jail cell in August, apparently by suicide.
Clinton became publicly linked to the sex offender after his name was mentioned several times in unsealed court documents. While he may be regretful about his interactions with Epstein, Clinton said he wants to “live in the present, for the future.”
“You need to be thinking about what you’re gonna do today that will help tomorrow. I just decided that’s the way I would think all the time: What can I do today? How can I move the law forward on something I care about?”
Clinton has faced many highly personal attacks during his time as president and after but says he’s learned not to let it distract him.
“When the going got rough, I tried to imagine that I was one of those big inflatable toys of the cartoon figures Baby Huey or Casper the Friendly Ghost—they were big favorites of kids when I was in elementary school,” he said. “You could knock them down and they always bounced right back up. To survive in politics, that’s what you have to do, over and over,” he added. “Maybe we should start producing those bouncing figures again, as representative of happy warriors reaching across our great divide.
Here’s everything you need to know to purchase Clinton’s memoir, released on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024.
BUY NOW: My Life After The White House on Amazon
- Where to buy: Amazon
- Release date: Nov. 19, 2024
Citizen: My Life After The White House was released on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2024. The book can be purchased on Amazon.
The memoir, which follows his earlier book, My Life, tells the story of Clinton’s post-presidential years. According to its description, stories will include “9/11 and the runup to the Iraq War, the Haiti earthquake, the Great Recession, the January 6 insurrection, and the enduring culture wars of our times.”
“These pages capture Clinton in a rare and unforgettable light: not only as a celebrated former president and a foundation leader, but as a father, grandfather, and husband,” per the book’s description.
