Woody Allen on his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein: ‘He couldn’t have been nicer’

“There were about twenty people there, and we knew a lot of them from showbusiness. I don’t want to say who.

“We didn’t know Jeffrey at all then, but we see all these people there and they all embraced him, so we figured, ‘okay, he’s a substantial character’.”

However, Allen insisted that he and Soon-Yi were unaware why Epstein had served time, claiming that he told them he had been “extorted”.

"He told us he’d been in jail and that he had been [extorted] but that he’d been falsely put in jail in some way.

“He told us he was trying to make up for it now by being philanthropic and giving money to cutting-edge scientists and universities. He couldn’t have been nicer.”

“We would go and there was always a table of illustrious people, college professors, scientists, Nobel laureates - accomplished people who were fun to listen to," Allen went on. "On one occasion he had an evening of comedians and another time it was an evening of magicians.

He added that Epstein "always had a girlfriend, clarifying he was not referring to Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, but insisted that he never saw one who was underage.

And, in the 2016 letter he compared the financier to Count Dracula, writing: "Often [the door is answered] by some professional houseman and just as often by several young women reminding one of Castle Dracula where [Dracula actor] Bela Lugosi has three young female vampires who service the place...”

“Add to this that Jeffrey lives in a vast house alone, one can picture him sleeping in damp earth.”