Is this a photo of Don Lemon and the late convicted sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein posing together? No, that's not true: This is a doctored photo. In the original photo, Lemon was actually posing with his CNN colleague Chris Cuomo.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) where it was published on August 16, 2020, with the caption:
If you don't know who that is, that is Don Lemon (CNN reporter) and Jeff[rey] Epstein. 🤦♂️
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Aug 24 14:24:48 2020 UTC)
Lemon and Cuomo, both CNN anchors, have been friends for a number of years, according to social media posts. Lemon posted the original photo to his instagram on July 23, 2020, which is from 2013 according to the caption.
This photo was doctored to feature Epstein's head instead of Cuomo's. The photo of Epstein that was incorporated into the original was taken by photographer Patrick McMullan in 2005, according to a fact-check on the same claim by checkyourfact.com.
Here is the photo, from Getty Images:
Epstein died in jail by suicide while awaiting federal sex trafficking charges in August of 2019. Epstein knew a number of famous and powerful people, some of whom have come under online scrutiny for appearing with Epstein in photos or by knowing him. Lemon is not one of them, however, because this is a doctored photo of Epstein and Lemon.
