In February 2016, Jeffrey Epstein wrote an email to Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, with a sentence that should have made front page of every newspaper in the Western world: “As you probably know, I represent the Rothschilds.” The sentence is in Epstein Files. It is an official document of the United States Department of Justice. And the mainstream press treated it as it would a footnote about the weather in Bermuda.
The name “Rothschild” appears nearly 12,000 times across the 3.8 million pages released in January 2026. Twelve thousand times. By comparison, “Clinton” appears at a significantly lower frequency. But in media ecosystem that Chomsky helped build, repeating name Rothschild in an investigative context is automatically reclassified as conspiratorial delusion. Convenient, when yours is most cited name in largest child sex trafficking scandal in modern history.
Les Wexner, the billionaire founder of Victoria’s Secret and Epstein’s largest known benefactor, testified under oath before House Oversight Committee on February 18, 2026. Asked about the credentials that led him to entrust Epstein with full power of attorney over his finances, he answered plainly: “His personal work for the Rothschild family in France.” He added: “Specifically, I spoke to Élie de Rothschild. He represented their whole family.” Under oath. Before United States Congress. Wexner’s attorney was caught whispering to his client on a hot mic: “I’ll fucking kill you if you answer another question with more than five words.” Desperation has recognizable symptoms. The documents confirm what Wexner revealed.
In October 2015, Southern Trust Company Inc., chaired by Epstein and based in the Virgin Islands, entered into a $25 million contract with Edmond de Rothschild Holding S.A. The subject: “risk analysis” and “application of certain algorithms.” Twenty-five million dollars for a convicted child sex offender to run algorithms for the wealthiest family in Europe. If this were a TV script, no studio would buy it for lack of plausibility. Ariane de Rothschild, CEO of Edmond de Rothschild Group since 2023, exchanged emails with Epstein dozens of times per month. The Wall Street Journal confirmed in 2023 that she met with him in person more than a dozen times after his conviction. The bank’s initial defense was to deny any contact. Later, they admitted the meetings took place “as part of her normal duties.” Normal duties apparently include regular meetings with convicted pedophiles.
In 2014, Epstein wrote to Ariane: “The coup in Ukraine should provide many opportunities.” Many. A financial manager convicted of child sexual exploitation discussing geopolitical opportunities with the heiress of a $236 billion banking empire. This should have been front-page news. It became editorial silence. Across the Atlantic, WikiLeaks emails had already exposed the relationship between Hillary Clinton and Lynn Forester de Rothschild. In September 2010, Clinton, then Secretary of State, wrote to Lady de Rothschild apologizing for having pulled Tony Blair away from a private engagement with the Rothschilds in Aspen to attend Middle East negotiations. The phrase is verbatim: “Let me know what penance I owe you.” The Secretary of State of the world’s greatest power asking penance of a private citizen.
Billions of your tax dollars are going to Palantir — and the police state it's helping Trump build could soon be used against you. pic.twitter.com/687NxrwDVv
Iran is not the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel in Tehran. Blitzing the illegitimate child Israel is guaranteed. Mandelson and the Fat White Duke formerly known as Prince from the Palace to the Tower
‘Revealing’ author explains difference between TMI and the kind of healthy ‘oversharing’ that deepens relationships
By Christina Pazzanese
Harvard Staff Writer
February 19, 2026 9 min read
Leslie K. John.Photo by Grace DuVal
Opening up to others and disclosing something personal is a powerful tool that can build rapport, enhance likeability, and bring people closer together, says Leslie John, a behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School.
But too often, people avoid sharing more of themselves out of fear they may say the wrong thing and look foolish, or worse, say too much and make everyone uncomfortable. It’s a caution that carries more risks than we realize, she writes in a new book, “Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing.”
In this conversation edited for clarity and length, John, the James E. Burke Professor of Business Administration at HBS, explains that “exposing your belly” to others, if done at the right time and in a purposeful way, can deepen relationships and build credibility. Most importantly, it’s a skill that can be learned.
What is “revealing” and how does it help us make and keep friends, romantic partners, and colleagues at work?
The key active ingredient is trust. When you reveal something sensitive to someone, that’s a kind of social risk. I’m relinquishing control to the universe, and I’m showing you that I trust you to not make a fool out of me. That is contagious. Because when you show that you trust someone, it causes them to trust you. Tons of studies have shown this.
“When you show that you trust someone, it causes them to trust you. Tons of studies have shown this.”
Saying “You can trust me” doesn’t work. To be trusted, you have to take a risk and show that you trust the other person, and then that will make them trust you. And then once we have trust, that’s the social currency. The basis of all healthy relationships is trust.
You say a common mistake is people share very little, thinking it will minimize the risk of embarrassment or making a bad impression. But that also has risks, more than we realize. Can you explain?
There are a couple of core things. Number one is we don’t even realize the opportunities to share more. We don’t even appreciate them because we’re so good at defaulting to not saying anything that we don’t even think about opening up.
The point isn’t to say everything that comes to mind. We withhold for very good reasons. Sometimes it’s kind to withhold; sometimes we’re busy; sometimes there are status or power imbalances. But it’s still a decision. If we think about them as actual decisions and consider them more, then we will say a lot more of the things that are left unsaid. And when we approach these decisions wisely, all of the research says we’ll be better off for it.
Number two is that when we do think about these decisions, everyone fixates on the risks of revealing.
Suppose your colleague doesn’t give you credit for something that was your idea at work and you’re thinking about saying something. What do you think about? You think, “Oh, they’ll think I’m petty; it’s going to be an awkward conversation; there’s going to be friction.” Everyone stops there.
If you want to make a good decision, you have to think not just about the risks of revealing, but also of the potential benefits. We’re hardwired, in some ways, to be overly fixated on the risks, and so, in my book, I want to correct that.
Where is the line between sharing something that builds rapport and going too far, like discussing your dating adventures with co-workers?
That’s TMI [too much information]. That’s a mistake people sometimes make in acquaintanceships and early friendships. We are exquisitely sensitive to this unspoken rule of reciprocity. You don’t want to be sharing everything, and you don’t want them to. That’s an overshare if you share out of sequence. The goal is they share something, and you reciprocate with something as sensitive or a little bit more, and you go back and forth. But if one person is doing all the sharing, that’s not a functional relationship. And it’s annoying.
You tell the story about how during the interview to join the HBS faculty, you were perhaps a little too “authentic” and thought you had accidentally cost yourself the job.
I share a lot of personal anecdotes in the book looking back at these points in my life where I thought I had overshared, like insulting my prospective colleague who was interviewing me.
It was not strategic. It was a stupid blurt I made when I was nervous, which I sometimes do. In the moment, their faces were shocked and I thought: This is the end. Poof, my job’s gone. But then, three days later, I got a phone call. They said: When you sassed us like that, we thought, you’ll fit right in here. The senior colleague I insulted became one of my closest mentors.
There are studies by Dan Cable and other organizational scholars that show that qualified job candidates who show a bit of themselves, who don’t sound scripted, are more likely to get the job. This isn’t: Tell them your deepest, darkest secrets. The conclusion that I’ve been coming to is that most people stand to gain from sharing a bit more in most situations.
Which kinds of topics do people tend to overshare or under-share?
The things that are the most sensitive to talk about are sex, finances, and health. But context matters so much. Health in a doctor’s office is different than health talking to your boss.
A chronic overshare is gossip, saying negative things about other people behind their backs. It’s not nice, but it is also bad because it erodes trust. We all know people who gossip a lot. Would you tell your secrets to that person? No. You can’t have a close relationship with someone who gossips all the time.
“There are things that we tend to under-share. One is praise — saying that you love certain things about people, about what they do.”
There are things that we tend to under-share. One is praise — saying that you love certain things about people, about what they do. We hold back on this. As an academic, academics are so freaking stingy with praise. And yet praise brings everybody joy and we don’t do it enough. Recently, I’ve been practicing doing this more. So far, I’m loving it.
Another category of under-share is your successes. I don’t mean bragging on LinkedIn, I mean telling a very close friend about a success, say, that you got a promotion. We have a hard time sharing our successes with some of our best friends because we don’t want them to feel bad. But that can backfire, especially if they find out another way. And when they do, that’s bad for your relationship because they may ask themselves, “I wonder why they didn’t tell me that? Hmm. I guess we’re not as close as I thought we were.”
What about work — presumably there are different rules for sharing there?
The workplace is tough because there are strong norms and people worry a lot about oversharing there. One way to think about it in the workplace is a distinction between transparency and vulnerability.
Transparency is — think of it as cognitive openness — sharing the way your brain works to someone.
In a job interview, if you get asked, “What’s your biggest weakness?” don’t do the annoying, eyerolling, “I work too hard.” But you also don’t want to share something that’s really damaging.
Suppose the weakness is you don’t like being put on the spot in meetings? Congratulations, you’re human. How might you respond in a way that shows some openness without getting into vulnerability territory? Well, you could say something like, “The way my mind works is that I like to have two minutes to prep my thoughts before I make a presentation because I find that even after just a moment of reflection, I’m way more organized and articulate.” That’s transparency. It’s more powerful than just saying, “Please give me a heads up for meetings.”
When sharing sensitive thoughts and sharing feelings in the workplace, you need to be very careful about vulnerability. When making these disclosure decisions, situational awareness is key. You have to read the room. And, at any time, if you’re starting to open up, and it doesn’t feel right, you should stop and regroup. Because you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.
What should people ask themselves when deciding whether to “overshare”?
I think it starts with knowing your why: What are you trying to achieve with potentially revealing the thing?
It’s often lots of things at once. If I share this edgy joke, I want to have fun; I want to build rapport. Maybe I’m a high-status person at work, and I want people to feel comfortable; I want to be relatable; I want to motivate my employees. Or is it more like, I want all the attention? Figuring out your why requires a kind of brutal honesty with yourself. If you do that, you’ll start to question some of your goals and hone them. In turn, you will make wiser, more intentional, decisions about what to reveal and what not to reveal.
Timing is super important, and that’s another thing to consider.
Revealing wisely is a skill. It’s not something we’re born with or without. The way we get better is by practicing and doing it and reflecting.
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