Joss Sackler, of the opioid dynasty, defends her family and says scandal has ...

Her family may be ensnared in an onslaught of lawsuits for their alleged part in perpetuating the opioid epidemic currently plaguing much of the US, but beneficiary of the OxyContin fortune Joss Sackler insists it has nothing to do with her – or her exclusive wine society.

Forty-four states across the country have now filed lawsuits against the Sackler family business, Purdue Pharma, accusing the billionaires of fueling the nation’s opioid crisis with deceptive marketing techniques that claimed the drug wasn’t addictive.

Former director of the company and Joss’ father-in-law, Richard Sackler, has also been sued personally by a number of states for attempting to ‘conceal OxyContin’s strength from doctors,’ and then allegedly urging the company to increase sales efforts as the crisis began to mount.

But 34-year-old Joss Sackler says she remains otherwise occupied, focusing her energy towards her exclusive women’s wine club-come-fashion label, LBV, which she co-founded in 2017.

‘I support my family 500 percent,’ she said. ‘I believe they will be completely vindicated. But they have nothing to do with LBV.’ 

Recently, in a response to a New York Times article titled ‘Uptown, Sackler Protests. Downtown, a Sackler Fashion Line’, Joss made her insistence to be separated from the prescription drug scandal abundantly known in an explosive Facebook post.

‘If a male entrepreneur’s business was prospering and popular, would the New York Times dare publish an article so focused on the family business of his wife?’ She rhetorically asked.

‘I was flattered that you came to our LBV presentation’ she continued, ‘but what better truth for this sad media reality than what you have done here—using the same bait-and-click language to malign LBV, my own women’s initiative unrelated to Purdue, aimed at promoting women’s empowerment.

‘What you accomplished in your bait-and-switch text was to relegate my identity to only being someone’s wife, thereby erasing any signs of my successes or accomplishments as a woman.’

Reaction to the outburst was varied. Some commended Joss’ bravery for confronting the article head-on, others insisted it should’ve been titled ‘“Meet Joss Sackler, who just unveiled her hideous own fashion line made possible by blood money.’”

But in a bizarre interview with Town and Country this week, Joss doubled-down on her belief that she should be judged separately from her family’s opioid ties – despite being a beneficiary of the $13 billion fortune the Sackler family have amassed from OxyContin.

‘Are you going to write about what I choose? Or describe how I look off into the distance angrily when the name Sackler comes up?’ Joss asked Town and Country’s Norman Vanamee.

All eight Sacklers named in recent lawsuits, including Joss’ husband David, vehemently deny all allegations and say they’re willing to defend themselves in court.

Joss agrees with their claims of innocence and remains confident that her family will be cleared of any criminal wrongdoing. 

Joss launched LBV two years ago, which was initially sold as an exclusive members wine club but has since evolved into social club complete with private trips to art galleries and black-tie dinners.

Members pay anywhere from $500 to $2,500 in annual fees to be a part of the group. 

Aside from OxyContin, the Sackler family have long been known for their philanthropy, regularly donating large sums of money to art museums such as the Louvre, the Met and the Smithsonian.

In 2018, artist Nan Goldin began holding demonstrations at museums and other institutions who received Sackler donation money.

Her activist group, Prescriptive Addiction Intervention Now (PAIN), gathered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – which has an entire wing named after the Sacklers – and launched hundreds of empty prescription bottles into the air.

She also staged a ‘die-in’ at the Guggenheim, dropping leaflets from the museum’s iconic spiraling walkway with ‘Sacklers Lie, People Die’ written across them.

And on Wednesday the Met insisted it would no longer be excepting donations from the Sackler family, in light of their legal woes.

‘I’m not the person to speak to about the Sackler family philanthropy,’ Joss insisted when pressed on the issue. ‘Why don’t you do a big piece on LBV instead?’

‘Why don’t you put that in the magazine? Why don’t you put that on the cover?,’ the mother-of-three continued to Town and Country.