Jean-Luc Brunel

Jean-Luc Didier Henri René Brunel (French: [ʒɑ̃ lyk didje ɑ̃ʁi ʁəne bʁynɛl], 18 September 1946 – 19 February 2022) was a French model scout and alleged sex trafficker. He gained prominence by leading the international modelling agency Karin Models, and founded MC2 Model Management with financing by Jeffrey Epstein. The subject of a 60 Minutes investigation in 1988, Brunel faced allegations of procuring prostitution and sexual assault spanning three decades.

Brunel came under scrutiny for his ties to Epstein, with whom he worked from the early 2000s to 2015 after Ghislaine Maxwell had introduced them. He was accused by Virginia Giuffre of grooming girls including herself and of taking part in an alleged sex trafficking operation involving Epstein, but denied involvement in any illegal activities with Epstein.

Following Epstein's death in 2019, Brunel went into hiding. The Paris prosecutor's office launched an investigation into crimes committed by Epstein and others in August of the same year, mentioning Brunel by name. He was arrested on 16 December 2020 and was charged with the rape of a minor. However, before his trial could proceed, Brunel was found hanged in his cell at La Santé Prison. Early media reports referred to his death as suicide, which was confirmed in 2023 following a formal investigation by the prosecutor's office, concluding that he had committed suicide as "a reaction to his indictment and incarceration".

In the 2026 release of the Epstein files, Brunel was listed in a 2019 document as one of the people "the FBI once called co-conspirators" of Epstein.

Jean-Luc Brunel was born on 18 September 1946 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, an urban commune west of Paris. He had one brother, Arnaud.

In the late 1970s, Brunel began working as a scout for Karin Models, Karin Mossberg's modeling agency in Paris. By 1978, he was running the company. In 1988, Brunel and his brother Arnaud founded the Next Management Corporation. The following year, together with Faith Kates, they formed the Next Model Management Company, a global modeling agency. Kates owned most of the company; the Brunel brothers owned 25 percent. American Photo reported that Brunel split off from Next Management Company in April 1996 with models from the Miami office. Next Model Management sued the Brunel brothers in 1996.

Brunel discovered a number of models who rose to prominence, including Christy Turlington and Sharon Stone. Building on these early successes, he founded Karin Models of America in 1995. After Brunel was included in a BBC One MacIntyre Undercover report on abuse within the fashion industry in November 1999, he was banned from his modeling agency in Europe. In the early 2000s, Brunel moved to the United States. The Daily Beast reported that he relied on funding from his brother Arnaud and their business partner, Étienne des Roys. In 2003, both financiers pulled out and after the "Paris office filed to revoke Brunel's claim to the Karin trademark in 2004", he changed the name of the agency to MC2.

In 1988, Brunel was the subject of a seven-month investigation by CBS producer Craig Pyes and reporter Diane Sawyer for 60 Minutes. The investigative segment, "American Models in Paris", which aired on 23 October 1988, covered the conduct of Brunel and fellow Parisian modeling agent Claude Haddad. Several American models who worked with Brunel told 60 Minutes that he fostered a culture in which the models were routinely drugged and sexually abused. Eileen Ford (of the New York-based Ford Modeling Agency), who had sent her models to Brunel for assignments in Paris, told 60 Minutes that she had not known that models complained of sexual exploitation and drug abuse by Brunel. He denied the claims, but Ford severed ties with him after the broadcast.