Les Wexner: Biography, Net Worth, and Epstein Ties

Full name: Leslie Herbert Wexner ·
Born: September 8, 1937 ·
Net worth: $6.5 billion (Forbes, 2025) ·
Spouse: Abigail Wexner (m. 1993) ·
Children: 4 ·
Founded: L Brands (formerly The Limited)

Eight data points define Wexner’s public record, one pattern: a sixty-year retail career that ended in an abrupt departure and a legacy now defined by Epstein.

What is Les Wexner’s real name?

Leslie Herbert Wexner is the full name behind the “Les” in headlines. The Wexner Foundation’s official biography lists him as Leslie H. Wexner (Wexner Foundation’s official bio), and corporate records from L Brands use the same form.

When was Les Wexner born?

• Date: September 8, 1937
• Place: Dayton, Ohio
• Full legal name: Leslie Herbert Wexner

Wexner’s birth date sits at the start of every profile of his career. He was 56 when he married Abigail, in his early 80s when he stepped down from L Brands, and 88 as of 2025 — life stages that track closely with the rise and fall of mall-based retail in America.

What is Les Wexner’s age?

• Age: 88 (as of 2025)
• Generational marker: Born in the late 1930s

At 88, Wexner belongs to a cohort of retail founders whose careers predate e-commerce, the internet, and most of the mega-brands he later competed against. The unusual part is not his age — it’s that his retirement years have been consumed by the Epstein story rather than by a comfortable exit.

Who is Abigail Wexner?

Abigail Wexner, née Koppel, is Les Wexner’s wife. They married in 1993 and have four children together (Wexner Foundation’s official bio).

How old are Les Wexner’s children?

• Number of children: 4
• Birth years: After 1993

Because Wexner married in 1993, all four children were born after that year. Their individual birth dates are not a significant part of the public record; the family’s shared charitable work through the Wexner Foundation gets far more attention.

What’s the age difference between Les Wexner and his wife?

• Age gap: Approximately 23 years
• Abigail’s birth decade: 1960s

Abigail was born in the 1960s, making her roughly 23 years younger than Wexner. The age gap is one of the most-searched biographical details about the couple, even though it has little bearing on the Epstein story.

What this means: the Wexner family profile is simple and stable. The instability in this story never came from home — it came from the financial adviser Epstein was introduced as in the late 1980s.

What political party is Les Wexner affiliated with?

Newsweek described Wexner during the Epstein files release as a billionaire whose name kept surfacing in court documents (Newsweek). His political giving, recorded in Federal Election Commission filings, tells a separate and simpler story: donations tilted heavily Republican, with occasional contributions to Democratic figures.

Party registration is not public in the same way, so the donation record is how Wexner’s political affiliation is most often measured. The pattern: his giving placed him in the conventional Republican-donor lane, while the relationship that ended his career operated far outside it.

How did Les Wexner make his money?

Wexner built his fortune by owning the stores, the brands, and eventually the parent company that controlled them all. He founded The Limited in 1963 after obtaining a $5,000 loan from his aunt, then bought Victoria’s Secret in 1982 for about $1 million when it was a small, struggling chain of five San Francisco stores (Forbes’ retail profile).

His first store generated approximately $160,000 in first-year sales, according to the Wexner Foundation (Wexner Foundation). From there, the group expanded to include The Limited, Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, Express, and other brands (Vox’s analysis).

Who founded Victoria’s Secret?

• 1982: Wexner acquires Victoria’s Secret for about $1 million
• At acquisition: Small, struggling chain of five San Francisco stores

Wexner didn’t create the brand, but he turned it into a global powerhouse. The $1 million purchase is the defining transaction of his career: the same brand that anchored L Brands’ growth into a company with $12 billion in annual sales (Wexner Foundation).

What companies does Wexner still own?

• L Brands: Chairman emeritus, with an ongoing stake
• Victoria’s Secret: Majority stake sold in 2020
• Other holdings: Real estate and private investments

After stepping down, Wexner kept a stake in L Brands while the company sold a majority interest in Victoria’s Secret to a private-equity firm for approximately $525 million (Forbes). The details of his remaining real estate and private investments are not fully public.

Why did Les Wexner step down?

Wexner stepped down from executive leadership of L Brands in 2020 (Forbes). The move was presented as a succession step, but the timing was no coincidence: Epstein’s 2019 arrest had put Wexner’s decades-long association with him under intense scrutiny.

Wexner met Epstein through mutual acquaintances in Palm Beach around 1986, according to PBS NewsHour/AP (PBS NewsHour/AP). By the late 1980s, Epstein was working as Wexner’s financial manager, and Vanity Fair’s investigation found Epstein managed substantial aspects of his finances (Vanity Fair’s investigation).

Epstein also held a senior role in a Wexner development firm during the 1990s and owned property in New Albany, Ohio, near the Wexner family estate, according to NBC News (NBC News). Wexner has said he ended the relationship; in a 2019 statement he said he was “embarrassed” and “duped” by Epstein (Vanity Fair).

Where is Les Wexner living now?

• Primary residences: Ohio and Florida
• Ohio base: New Albany, near Columbus

Wexner lives primarily in Ohio and Florida. In Ohio, the family estate is in New Albany — the same suburb where Epstein once owned property nearby (NBC News).

What is Leslie Wexner doing now?

• Corporate role: Chairman emeritus of L Brands
• Philanthropic role: Wexner Foundation
• Legal status: Deposed in the Epstein files probe

Wexner remains chairman emeritus of L Brands, but his public activity now centers on the Wexner Foundation, the family’s philanthropic organization (Wexner Foundation). He has also been deposed as part of the Epstein files probe, so his name will keep surfacing as documents are released (PBS NewsHour/AP).

The pattern: Wexner’s authority over his own fortune was at its lowest precisely when Epstein’s power of attorney was at its highest.

Is Les Wexner the richest man in Ohio?

Forbes lists Wexner’s net worth at $6.5 billion as of 2025 (Forbes’ net-worth estimate), a figure that places him among the wealthiest people in Ohio. He is not necessarily the richest at any given moment — other Ohio billionaires, including Larry Connor and Dan Gilbert, occupy the same tier.

What is Les Wexner’s net worth?

• 2025 estimate: $6.5 billion (Forbes)
• Earlier estimate: More than $9 billion (Newsweek)

When Epstein-related files renewed attention on Wexner, Newsweek reported his estimated wealth at more than $9 billion (Newsweek’s coverage). The difference between $9 billion and $6.5 billion is a reminder that billionaire net worth is a moving target — and that Wexner’s post-L Brands portfolio is smaller and less visible than the retail empire he once controlled.

The pattern: Ohio’s billionaire rankings are a moving target, but Wexner’s wealth was never really the point. The money is what made him valuable to Epstein; the access Epstein gained is what made the relationship destructive.

Timeline: The Wexner record

Nine dates capture the arc, one pattern: the closer to the present, the more the record belongs to Epstein.

The dates before 2019 read like a standard retail success story. The dates after read like a legal and reputational accounting.

What’s confirmed vs. what’s still unclear

The distinction matters here more than in most profiles, because the Wexner record mixes hard documents with open legal questions.

The pattern: the documented record is public; the legal judgment is not.

Key quotes on Wexner and Epstein

Wexner said he was “embarrassed” and had been “duped” by Epstein, in a statement to L Brands employees in 2019.

— Les Wexner, via Vanity Fair’s investigation

Wexner granted Epstein power of attorney in 1991, and Epstein used it to move through Wexner’s financial life — investments, business deals, property purchases, and development tied to his Ohio estate.

— Documents described by PBS NewsHour/AP

Forbes’ 2025 estimate places Wexner’s net worth at $6.5 billion and keeps him in the top tier of Ohio’s wealthiest residents.

— Forbes

Together, those statements frame the distance between Wexner’s public account and the documentary record.

Where things stand

Wexner’s retirement was supposed to be the quiet chapter — foundation work, family, distance from the daily pressures of retail. Instead, the Epstein files probe keeps pulling his name back into public view. The documented record shows he handed Epstein extraordinary financial authority; it does not show that Wexner committed a crime. For Ohio nonprofit leaders who rely on Wexner Foundation support, the real-world consequence is unavoidable: the family’s donations now arrive attached to a name linked to Jeffrey Epstein, and deciding whether to accept them is a question no charity’s operating budget can answer.

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