Each day since the Justice Department published 3.5 million new documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case on January 30, we’ve learned of yet another powerful man who was in contact with the convicted sex offender and people in his network. Late last week, the name Peter Thomas Roth surfaced. According to what appear to be emails in the DOJ release, the skin care brand founder had communicated with Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell from 2004 until 2018. Now, influencers and content creators are publicly disavowing Roth’s brand and—along with some everyday consumers—calling for boycotts in light of this information.
Nothing in the files suggests that Roth was involved in any criminal conduct, but he exchanged many friendly emails with Epstein and Maxwell long after the former pleaded guilty in 2008 to felony solicitation of prostitution and procuring a person under the age of 18 for prostitution. In September 2017, Roth allegedly visited Epstein’s home to “explain to all the girls about skin creams, cleansers and such,” according to an email. The same month, Roth sent Epstein 13 gift bags filled with products. Epstein was subsequently charged with federal sex trafficking in July 2019.
Roth launched his skin care line in 1993 after struggling to find products that treated his acne. The brand is now carried in Sephora, Ulta, and QVC. In a statement sent to Allure, representatives for Peter Thomas Roth stated that Roth “gave up the day-to-day operations of his eponymous brand in 2016.” According to the brand’s website, Roth “leads all research and development efforts.” He is still the CEO.
On February 8, skin care influencer Hyram Yarbro posted a 26-minute YouTube video in which he said he would no longer promote the brand. He says he has featured its products in “hundreds” of his videos. “I just figured out today that one of my favorite skin care brands that I have featured in hundreds of videos since the very beginning of my channel, Peter Thomas Roth, is all up in the Epstein files,” Yarbro stated in the video. “I personally will not be supporting him or the brand anymore.” At press time, the video has more than 230,000 views and over 2,000 comments, some saying they are going to go so far as to boycott Ulta and Sephora as long as they continue to carry the brand.
J.C. Dombrowski, a content creator, also posted a video to say he’s severing any connection with the brand, deleting any previous videos he’s made featuring its products and requesting to be taken off its public relations team’s mailing list. “I feel especially let down, violated, and appalled that my content helped bankroll someone and some brand like that,” he wrote in his caption, where he also described himself as a survivor of abuse.
People across the internet with far smaller followings, including on Reddit, are also denouncing Roth and his brand, calling on others to stop purchasing his products. “I’m genuinely disgusted and angry about this. PTR made one of my favorite moisturizers but after this I will be buying no more,” one user wrote in the /BeautyGuruChatter subReddit.
When Allure asked brand representatives for Peter Thomas Roth for comment, they pointed us toward a statement that Roth posted to both his personal Instagram profile and the brand’s on February 5. In it, he said that Epstein was his physics teacher at The Dalton School in New York City in the early ’70s. “We stayed in touch casually in the nearly five decades that followed,” he wrote. “I’m horrified by the crimes he committed and the lasting impact they have had on his victims, and I deeply regret maintaining any association with him after leaving The Dalton School.”
