Billionaire retail magnate Leslie H. Wexner said he was “appreciative” but unsurprised by Harvard’s decision not to remove his name from two prominent spaces at the Harvard Kennedy School when reached by phone Wednesday afternoon.

Wexner’s comments came hours after Kennedy School Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein wrote in an email to affiliates that a recent push to strip his name from the school’s main building was foreclosed by “the University’s legal obligations.”

Affiliates put forward the proposal in March, asking Harvard to remove Wexner’s name from the campus over his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein, who served for years as the billionaire donor’s financial manager.

Wexner said he had “no idea” what legal obligations Harvard was referring to, but maintained he knew nothing of Epstein’s criminal activity and said he was a “victim” of Epstein’s deception.

Wexner said Harvard did not contact him about the denaming proposal before announcing that legal obligations prevented the University from removing his name.

A Harvard spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on whether the University contacted Wexner, his lawyers, or the Wexner Foundation before reaching its decision.

“I would have been shocked that a rational organization — which I believe Harvard is — could come to what I would consider the wrong conclusion,” Wexner said of the push to dename.

Wexner said he did not know whether the original naming agreement required Harvard to keep his name on the building permanently.

“My wife’s the lawyer,” he said. “They sent us an agreement — I’m sure paper was passed, but no one ever asked about it. I never inquired about it.”

The denaming effort is only the latest episode in a rocky relationship between Harvard and Wexner, who has given more than $42 million to the University and helped fund the Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership.

Wexner said he and his wife spent “so much time and energy” on HKS and the Center for Public Leadership because they believed in the school’s mission to train public leaders.

“Harvard was the most interested and the most capable,” Wexner said of universities he considered funding. “We thought they were best prepared in the world and had a wonderful relationship with them.”

But Wexner said he no longer maintains close ties to the University. He said his closest Harvard relationship was with former HKS professor David R. Gergen, who died last July, and that he was also close with former HKS Dean Joseph S. Nye Jr., who died in May 2025.

“I really enjoyed him when he was dean, I enjoyed reading his books, I enjoyed discussing his views about politics in the world, and he was just a wonderful human being,” Wexner said. “Other deans have been very nice and pleasant to work with, but I really liked Joe.”

Wexner said he visited Gergen during his illness and attended his memorial service.

Members of the group that initially proposed removing Wexner’s name expressed frustration with the University’s decision Wednesday evening and the lack of transparency that accompanied it.

Lauren Barnes-Carrejo, one of the students who backed the proposal, said she received just a four-sentence email from the Office of the President about an hour before Weinstein informed all school affiliates of the decision.

Barnes-Carrejo said it was the first communication the group had received since their March submission and said she was “left with a lot of questions.”

Matthew A. Baum, the HKS professor who formally submitted the proposal on the group’s behalf, said the lack of detail cast doubt on Harvard’s denaming process.

“It raises the question of what the point of denaming policy option is if it can’t be utilized,” Baum said. “If nothing else, it suggests that there probably is a need for reform to the gift process, so that in the future there are no blanket exemptions from future lookbacks in these onerous situations.”

The HKS denaming proposal comes as other universities face growing pressure to remove the names of donors with ties to Epstein. At Ohio State University, where Wexner has been one of the school’s most influential benefactors, nearly 300 requests have been filed to remove Wexner’s name from campus buildings, including the Wexner Medical Center and the Les Wexner Football Complex. His name has not been removed from any of the buildings thus far.

Unlike Harvard, public records obtained by WOSU found no contracts tying Wexner’s name to any Ohio State buildings named after him.

Wexner pointed to his philanthropy in Ohio as evidence that his reputation had been unfairly tarnished by Epstein.

“We live, I think, pretty exemplary lives and wholesome lives in terms of responsibility,” he said. “I think anybody that basically dug into it, even superficially, it would be obvious.”

Wexner was among the most high-profile donors to cut off the University after its public response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel. His foundation ended a 34-year relationship with the University and suspended its long-running Wexner Israel Fellowship at HKS.

On Wednesday, Wexner said he still believed Ivy League leaders “were too woke or too quick to judgment” in the aftermath of Oct. 7.

Those fragile ties were thrown into turmoil again this year when millions of documents released by the Department of Justice renewed scrutiny of Wexner’s relationship with Epstein.

Wexner’s name appears on two lists of “co-conspirators” from 2019. A separate court document filed by lawyers for Maria Farmer, an Epstein survivor, alleged she was sexually assaulted by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell while staying as an “artist in residence” at a guest home on Wexner’s New Albany, Ohio, estate. No charges have been filed against Wexner.

In his February deposition, Wexner said he knew Farmer’s name only “from the press,” had never met her, and did not know whether she had stayed on his New Albany property.

Asked Wednesday whether there were security or guest logs from the period when Farmer has said she stayed at the New Albany property, Wexner said he did not think such records were kept.

“I don’t think we keep records of that,” Wexner said.

Wexner dismissed the co-conspirator label in the interview, saying “the government knew better” and that he was “never a co-conspirator.” Asked what he made of reports that his name appeared on the lists, Wexner said they “make great copy.”

“We have been cooperative with anybody who’s inquired, most of all with the government,” he said. “This will never go away because sadly, I think this is much juicier than Ponzi.”

Wexner has long denied wrongdoing and has said he severed ties with Epstein in 2007 after learning of the allegations against him and discovering that Epstein had siphoned millions of dollars out of his personal accounts. Wexner’s lawyers told prosecutors in July 2019 that Epstein paid the former Victoria’s Secret CEO $100 million in 2008 to even the till.

Asked how much Epstein took in total, Wexner said he thought “it could be as much as $200 million.”

Wexner was deposed by the House Oversight Committee in February as part of its investigation into Epstein. In the deposition, Wexner testified that he had been “duped” by Epstein, though lawmakers said afterward that they remained skeptical of Wexner’s account.

“I wasn’t worried about it because I didn’t know anything, I wasn’t guilty,” Wexner said Wednesday of his congressional appearance. “So I was very happy to give the statement and the deposition to end it all.”

But Wexner said he still believed Harvard had reached the right decision in declining to remove his name.

“The only thing that I was guilty of is being stupid,” he said.

Correction: June 23, 2026

Due to inaccurate information included in the denaming proposal submitted by the petitioners, a previous version of this article referred to the Sunshine Lobby as the Wexner-Sunshine Lobby. In fact, the Sunshine Lobby is not named for Leslie H. Wexner, though it is located inside the Wexner Building.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at hcc.35. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at elisespenner.82. Follow her on X @EliseSpenner.