Day: Mar 20, 2026

For Epstein and his associates, the Dalai Lama appears to have been treated as a guise — a high-value name used to project a false sense of moral authority.

Emails from Epstein’s circle reveal their scorn for this spiritual status. In a 2012 exchange, associates discussed the Dalai Lama’s “price tag” with striking bluntness.

They pointed to his $1 million appearance fee for the NXIVM group in 2009, a group later exposed as a sex cult, as proof of a “pay-to-play” reality. According to these records, some in Epstein’s circle even joked that the leader would appear as soon as the “money transfer cleared,” suggesting that his spiritual image functioned more as a marketable service than a sacred calling.

Meanwhile, files from Vanity Fair España found in the DOJ release categorized the Dalai Lama alongside infamous figures like Charles Manson, illustrating that, for many in the Western elite, he was viewed not as a holy figure, but as a name in a celebrity catalogue.