Katherine Keating's Epstein connection

1. Unsavory connection

Geoffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew - three names attached to an infamous pedophile ring, sexual abuse of young women, and blackmail of international political and powerful individuals. Into this web of iniquity is drawn Katherine Keating, the daughter of former former Prime Minister Paul Keating.

Prince Andrew, Katherine Keating and Jeffrey Epstein.

A summary of the unlikely association was contained in the following article from 2025:

* David Wu, Daughter of ex PM confirms she was invited to dinner by Prince Andrew as Epstein email emerges, news.com.au, 25 October 2025.

The socialite daughter of former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has broken her silence on her links to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein for the first time. Katherine Keating’s name was brought up during a creepy email exchange between Epstein and disgraced royal Prince Andrew in 2011 when she was 29 years old.

“Would you ask Katherine Keating if she would like to come for dinner with Woody Allen next week in New York?” Epstein said in the email to Andrew.

“Will do,” the disgraced prince, who gave up his Duke of York title this month, replied.

Two days later, Prince Andrew said he was “on the Keating case”.

“What will you do tomorrow? Sorry I cannot be there as you get older,” Epstein wrote in an email two days later on the eve of Andrew’s 51st birthday.

The exchange emerged as part of the Epstein Files, which are currently being reviewed by the US Congress. Ms Keating – the eldest daughter of Paul Keating, the prime minister of Australia between 1991 to 1996 – confirmed she had attended Epstein’s dinner.

“I did attend a February dinner at Andrew’s invitation — a large social event,” the now 44-year-old told The Mail on Sunday.

She also said a “sizeable chunk of NY society were also there, naming American journalists and TV hosts Barbara Walters, Charlie Rose and Katie Couric.”

“At the time, I had only lived in New York about ten weeks, and was happy to accept the odd social invitation,” Ms Keating added.

Ms Keating was an adviser in Bob Carr’s NSW Labor government and ran an international consulting business before moving to New York with her sister Alexandra. She reportedly began dating millionaire US hotel kingpin Andrew Balazs, who was 24 years her senior, and found herself part of Manhattan’s high society social circles. Ms Keating previously worked at youth media and broadcasting company Vice as a host and producer, and as publisher of its philanthropic and advocacy arm Vice Impact. She also hosted a YouTube interview series for The Huffington Post called One On One, which in 2014 featured Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend who helped him procure underage “sex slaves”. In the accompanying article written by Ms Keating for The Huffington Post website, she describes Maxwell as a “passionate deep-sea diver” who “devotes considerable energy to raising awareness and focusing attention on the issues surrounding oceans”.

“Ghislaine Maxwell is a British philanthropist and the founder of the TerraMar Project, a non-profit organisation dedicated to building a global community that will advocate for the world’s oceans and high seas,” Ms Keating wrote.

“Ghislaine believes there is no better or more important place for these issues to come to a head than the United Nations, but what has been lacking is a big movement from the global community.”

Maxwell was convicted of helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls and sentenced to 20 years prison time in 2021. Epstein died on August 10, 2019, inside a New York jail from reported suicide.

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2. Chronology

To understand the circumstances surrounding the unlikely association, the following chronology is presented, outlining what is publically known.

1981

* September 1981 - Katherine Keating (KK) is born, daughter of Paul Keating and Anita van Iersal (b.1948). They were a couple from 1975 through to 1998. Their children are: Katherine, Patrick, Alexandra and Antonia.

2004

* Katherine Keating gives evidence at a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry.

2010

* Alexandra Keating, Andre Balazs and Katherine Keating, New York, 2010. Photographer: Patrick McMullan.

* December 2010 - Video of Katherine Keating leaving Jeffrey Epstein's New York apartment, with Prince Andrew seen behind the door as she leaves, 2010. The footage was released by the English Mail on Sunday in 2019.

Katherine Keating and Prince Andrew, Epstein's apartment, New York.

2011

* 13 June 2011 - Email from Lesley Groff to JE meant for KK, being a schedule of day's events on Wednesday 15th and Thursday 16th June 2011.

* 12.36 am 28 October 2011 - KK email to a group including Jeffrey Epstein (JE) re an article in an interview with Paul Keating.

* 4.32 pm do. - JE responds to KK email. Are you here?

* 4.33 pm do. - KK to JE. Yes. Just back from San Fran.

* 8.21 am 31 October 2011 - KK to group, regarding a new book by Paul Keating. Signed Katherine X.

* 10.50 am do. - JE to KK. Where are you?

* do. - KK to JE. In New York, You?

* 3.08 pm do - JE to KK. Send me your phone number.

2013

* 25 March 2013 - Katherine Keating appointed director of Matilda Capital Ltd., New York.

2014

* 11 July 2014 - Katherine Keating resigns as director of Matilda Capital Ltd., New York.

2019

* 10 August 2019 - Jeffrey Epstein dies from a supposed suicide whilst in a New York jail.

* 22 August - Aaron Patrick, Inside the high altitude world of Katherine Keating, Australian Financial Review, 22 August 2019.

2025

* 21 October 2025 - Kait Justice, The Keating email they forgot to redact: What one line reveals about Epstein's global network.

* 18 November - Shane Dowling, Paul Keating named in Epstein File emails between daughter Katherine Keating and Jeffrey Epstein, Kangaroo Court of Australia, 18 November 2025, YouTube, duration: 9.34 minutes.

* 12 December 2025 - KK lawyer Giles George to American journalist Kait Justice regarding her article on the Epstein connection. Refer Dowling 2026.

2026

* January 2026 ... Epstein Files release many more documents involving KK and JE. 

* 25 May - Shane Dowling, Epstein link legal threats by Katherine Keating and Kevin Rudd, Kangaroo Court of Australia, 25 May 2026, YouTube, duration: 10.14 minutes.

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References

Dowling, Shane, Paul Keating named in Epstein File emails between daughter Katherine Keating and Jeffrey Epstein, Kangaroo Court of Australia, 18 November 2025, YouTube, duration: 9.34 minutes.

-----, Epstein link legal threats by Katherine Keating and Kevin Rudd, Kangaroo Court of Australia, 25 May 2026, YouTube, duration: 10.14 minutes.

Hornery, Andrew, How Katherine Keating blasted into billionaire paedophile Epstein's orbit, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August 2019.

Justice, Kait, The Keating email they forgot to redact: What one line reveals about Epstein's global network, Kait Justice, 21 October 2025. 

Koziol, Michael, Keating speaks out on ‘unfortunate’ Epstein ties after emails exposed, Sydney Morning Herald, 31 January 2026. Transcript:

Washington: Katherine Keating, daughter of former prime minister Paul Keating, has spoken out about her “unfortunate” friendship with Jeffrey Epstein after a long trail of emails between her and the convicted sex offender featured in the latest release of documents by the US Department of Justice. The documents show how Keating maintained a social relationship with Epstein for several years in the early 2010s, regularly arranging to visit his New York mansion and seeking his career advice as she tried to build a career in the American television industry. Keating told this masthead that she was initially interested in Epstein’s connections with prominent business figures but that Epstein – and especially his staff – contacted her with “persistence bordering on harassment”, leading her to eventually sever contact. “The rest of the trail of inconsequential emails from Epstein simply go to Epstein’s manic interest in following up any person whom he met or crossed paths with,” Keating said. “This is why there are so many emails in the administration’s release of them.” Epstein was convicted of child sex offences in Florida in 2008 and was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges when he was found dead in jail in 2019. There is no suggestion Keating was involved in, or had any knowledge of, improper activity by Epstein that later came to light.

How Epstein and Andrew drew a PM’s daughter into a swamp

Keating’s involvement with Epstein has been detailed before. Last year she acknowledged attending an event at Epstein’s mansion in February 2011 after being invited by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then known as Prince Andrew. She was also filmed leaving Epstein’s house in December 2010. But the new emails suggest their relationship was closer than previously known, and reveal how Epstein became a mentor to Keating, then in her late 20s. In one encounter in April 2011, Keating suggested inviting her younger sister Alexandra to a dinner Epstein was organising with film director Woody Allen, after Epstein told her that “woody likes pretty women”.

“I could invite my sister. 25, very cool and sharp as a tack,” Keating suggested. “Great,” Epstein replied. Keating told him she was looking forward to the dinner and that Alexandra would attend. They made plans to meet on many occasions over the next two years, and Epstein invited her to events such as film premieres. Keating included Epstein on a list of “friends” she emailed about a new book, After Words – a collection of her father’s speeches – promising to send them a copy.

Epstein became a mentor to Keating. In May 2011, a few days after the pair met again at Epstein’s home, she emailed him to detail a lunch with “Charlie” at his property in upstate New York – likely to be the American journalist and broadcaster Charlie Rose. Keating and Rose met at the February 2011 dinner party with Epstein and Prince Andrew. She said “Charlie” had offered her a job as business development manager but it would be unpaid. “He concluded by saying that he wants to work with me but it was a ‘reap what you sow’ opportunity,” she said.

By November 2011, Keating was still struggling to gain work. She told Epstein she met with three TV producers, including some from The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, and had meetings scheduled with the president of Hearst, as well as Google and the Creative Artists Agency.

“Seeing Clinton for dinner on Wednesday night [sic]. YouTube Thursday,” Keating emailed. “I’m doing all I can with the resources I have at hand.”

Epstein asked if Keating had called “Soros” - likely to be billionaire investor George Soros or a member of his family - but Keating said she had been unable to obtain his number.

“I want to know what changes you have to make to get this show on the road,” Epstein wrote. “This has gone on too long. you have seen many many potential buyers of your product and no one is buying. I think the sales pitch or and the product [you] need to be tweaked.”

The financier urged Keating to practise “active listening” and to stop taking notes in meetings. “I fear that you appear to have a lot to say and are wholly focused on saying it,” he said.

Epstein fallout

Keating’s note-taking was a serial irritant for Epstein. On another occasion he emailed financial power broker Ian Osborne: “I’m not sure why katherine keating was sitting taking notes when she was at my house, but you might be able to use her in austrailia [sic]. remind me later.”

At another point, Epstein reassured Keating that it could be difficult to make it in New York. “There are so many things flying at you from all directions that it takes great discipline to focus, on one,” he wrote. “pull the trigger, and if it doesn’t work move to the next.”

In her statement to this masthead, Keating stressed she had never visited Epstein’s private island, never been on his plane, never had an inappropriate interaction with him or his associates, never witnessed any inappropriate behaviour and had no knowledge of the criminal conduct that has come to light since their contact ended. She also said she never dealt with Epstein’s associate and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for conspiring with him to abuse girls. “I met Maxwell several years later at a sponsored event and never discussed Epstein with her,” Keating said.

“The only unfortunate thing about my first few months in America in 2010 was that Andrew Mountbatten[-Windsor] invited me to the home of Epstein for an afternoon tea and dinner party, and two months later passed across to Epstein my contact details. Were this not to have happened I would have had no contact with Epstein whatsoever.

“Having just arrived in New York and being invited to a dinner party by Andrew, populated by leading media and business figures, was of course of interest to me.

“Any follow-up contact, including emails with him or his staff, was simply viewed by me as an opportunity to meet reputable and major leaders of American business, to open career opportunities of a kind I would have not otherwise have had. I had absolutely no other reason to have anything to do with Epstein.”

Patrick, Aaron, Inside the high altitude world of Katherine Keating, Australian Financial Review, 22 August 2019.

Transcript: For the daughter of the Labor Party's most prominent republican, Katherine Keating was remarkably chummy with the British royal family. In a development that has added yet another strange twist to the sordid tale of serial sexual exploiter Jeffrey Epstein, Paul Keating's eldest daughter was apparently videotaped emerging from the infamous Epstein mansion in New York with a friendly wave to Prince Andrew nine years ago. Epstein was a convicted child sex offender at the time. Ms Keating was 29. The Keatings haven't confirmed if the brunette with the beauty spot was the Sydney-raised ex-political adviser on the cusp of Manhattan celebrity society. The silence from the media-savvy family would appear to be confirmation though, corroborated by a clear Daily Mail-obtained photograph showing the ex-prime minister's daughter standing on a nearby street corner a few minutes later. The story, which was quickly followed by the New York Post, New York Daily News and British Daily Telegraph, marked a big step up in Keating's global profile, although perhaps not in the way preferred by a woman who combines an ostentatious interest in nuclear proliferation, the oceans and Nelson Mandela with fashion and connections to the people who populate People magazine. While fond of citing Gloria Steinem, (who said: "There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis or a vagina") and the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Index, Keating likes to celebrate female sexuality, including her own. "Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that we are feminine, beautiful creatures," she posted on social media in March. "Yes, we live in a male-dominated world, but it's our strength and femininity, which distinguishes us." An awkward connection For a woman who wants to be seen as smart, noble and sexy, associating, however indirectly, with a man described by New York Magazine as a serial rapist and paedophile is awkward. How Keating came to be connected to what looks like the world's most famous sex ring - and Keating is entitled to the assumption that she did nothing wrong, morally or legally - might be explained by the heady and often exploitative world open to the youngish children of the rich, famous or venerated. As a confident, sassy Australian in a city that celebrates political connections, Keating charged into New York around 2010. She met Princess Eugenie (Prince Andrew's pink-faced daughter), Sting's oldest daughter, Mickey Sumner, and fashion designer Misha Nonoo (her real name and label), who is reported to have set up a blind date between Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle. Keating's entree into this elite world appears to have been an older boyfriend, Andre Balazs, whose ownership of Los Angeles' Chateau Marmont hotel made him a kind of landlord of celebrity debauchery. Balazs escorted the woman accused of facilitating Epstein's exploitation of girls, Ghislaine Maxwell, around New York while Epstein was residing part-time in a Florida prison for paying for sex with a minor. The cosy prosecution deal, which ignored more serious allegations, eventually cost the prosecutor his job, but only after he had risen to become Donald Trump's Secretary of Labor. Katherine Keating appears to leave Jeffrey Epstein's house in Manhattan. Internet Allegations against Epstein date to 2005, when a 14-year-old girl and her parents claimed the girl was molested at a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, according to the Miami Herald. The paper identified 80 women who claim they were molested or sexually abused by the financier. Alexandra Keating, right, and sister Katherine, at a party in Sydney in 2007. Janie Barrett A serial rapist and paedophile Epstein had a list of social contacts encompassing Donald Trump, Alan Dershowitz and Bill Clinton. The breadth of his circle is now known because the defunct Gawker gossip site published his contact book in 2015. Among the names of young women and powerful men listed was Balazs, Keating's boyfriend. Above all, though, Prince Andrew appeared to be Epstein and Maxwell's prized relationship. He flew on private jets with them, holidayed with them, and met the young women who populated Epstein's homes. The prince's presence in their orbit - and his relationship with Keating - is proving to be unexplained and excruciatingly uncomfortable. American Virginia Roberts claims she had sex with the royal when she was 17. A now-famous photograph shows the prince with his arm around Roberts' slim, adolescent waist. Maxwell grins in the background. Roberts, who married an Australian and lived on the NSW coast for a while, declared in a legal filing that she had sex with Andrew in the New York townhouse that Keating was apparently videotaped leaving a few years later. The allegation was sealed by a court. Epstein killed himself the day after it became public on August 9. Buckingham Palace issued a flat denial: "It is emphatically denied that the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts." Few jobs, lots of boards Keating's connection to Prince Andrew is a mystery. In 2010 she didn't have a full-time job, according to her detailed LinkedIn profile, and reportedly had moved to New York to be with Balazs, who is about 25 years older. A figure on the Sydney social scene, she didn't have a lot of professional experience or substantial qualifications. In 2003, while she was still studying for an arts degree at the University of NSW (politics, of course), Premier Bob Carr agreed to put her on his personal staff. She lasted 13 months in Carr's office, and 3½ years as an adviser in the Labor government. Her professional life then became a series of charity boards where the family name added a touch of glamour: the Sydney Cancer Foundation, the SAD Kids Foundation, the Young Garvan Committee and the National Institute for Dramatic Arts. It would take a decade to start regular employment again. In 2015 she was hired as a producer on Viceland, a television channel owned by Vice Media, a hip Brooklyn start-up. Paul Keating in 1999 with (from left) daughters Alexandra and Katherine, son Patrick, mother Min and sister Anne. Robert Pearce Despite her modest career achievements, Keating was an international-standard networker. During her years in New York she would rack up more board seats: the performance committee of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the ambassadors' council of the International Crisis Group (which was run by an ex-minister in her father's government, Gareth Evans), and an advisory committee for the Global Poverty Project, which was set up by two young Australians. She went with the group to Johannesburg to honour Nelson Mandela, and visited his house. She judged a prestigious environmental-technology prize, appeared on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland with venture capitalist and Power Ledger promoter Bill Tai, became an assistant producer on a Churchill biopic, The Darkest Hour, went to Los Angeles for the Oscars and to Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. She mixed with global leaders at the United Nations in New York. "Once a year I put on a suit, head uptown for UNGA [UN general assembly] and pretend I still work in politics," she wrote last September. "I enjoyed spending the afternoon in the company of [French President Emmanuel] Macron and several other world leaders." Sharing her success Like other members of her generation, Keating unselfconsciously shares her glamorous life with the world on social media. Her Twitter feed freely name drops, from "my friend" Malcolm Turnbull to "a very special evening with the Mandela family". Others who score a mention include her father, on his birthday, actor Hugh Jackman and Paul Polman, the former chief executive of Unilever. A new portrait of Prince Charles received a "bravo". Last year, though, she seemed to tire of New York, a city that had embraced her. In November she became the "chief sustainability officer" at Maverick, a Beverly Hills entertainment-management company. Her responsibilities are unclear, although she recently thanked Hugh Jackman for promoting an upcoming Australian tour by U2, one of the firm's clients, at a live performance. Katherine Keating, who courted publicity, has now disappeared. James Brickwood Her current whereabouts are unclear. She hasn't tweeted in three weeks and her Instagram account appears to have been erased. Reporters waiting outside younger sister Alex's home in Los Angeles caught her leaving with two men, a couple of suitcases and a small dog. Asked to comment on her sister's visit to Epstein's house, the Mail reported she shook her head and said: "I'm not Katherine." A call to Maverick, which also represents Paul McCartney, Madonna and Britney Spears, went through to voicemail on Wednesday. Keating didn't respond to a message sent to her LinkedIn account. With Keating now being pursued by the global media, she has a life-defining decision to make: disavow Epstein and share anything she saw; or keep quiet and wait for the maelstrom to pass. The latter approach might be known as the Lewinsky option. The former could provide the world with an insight into the intersection of power, money and sex - a story Gloria Steinem might be proud of.

Wikipedia, Ghislaine Maxwell, Wikipedia, accessed 14 July 2026.

-----, Jeffrey Epstein, Wikipedia, accessed 14 July 2026.

Wu, David, Daughter of ex PM confirms she was invited to dinner by Prince Andrew as Epstein email emerges, news.com.au, 25 October 2025.

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Last updated: 14 July 2026

Michael Organ, Australia