Does a viral image document Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney dining with Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite convicted of sex trafficking girls for Jeffrey Epstein? No, that's not true: The image displayed a watermark pointing to a generative AI tool. Several details in the picture, such as missing temples of a person's glasses or an earring incorrectly attached to an earlobe, strongly pointed to AI, too.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on February 25, 2026. It read:
Explain your relationship.
This is what the image attached to the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of X.)
The post implied that the picture was an authentic photo of Carney (archived here) and Maxwell (archived here), but the tiny watermark in the bottom-right corner read "Grok," the name of a generative AI tool.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of X.)
According to Google's "About this image" tab (archived here), the picture was at least 11 months old:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Google.)
The earliest example of this image found by Lead Stories came from a May 3, 2025, post (archived here, here and here) on Facebook. That version (archived here) also displayed the Grok watermark.
Manual analysis revealed signs strongly pointing to AI, too.
In the image in question, "Maxwell" wears the earrings that are not only different in design but also attach to her ears differently: One appears to have a normal earring clutch going through the piercing, while another one seems to have been glued to the woman's earlobe.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of X.)
Additionally, the glasses on the man in the background lacked temples:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of X.)
AI detection tool Hive said it was 99.9% likely that the image was generated using AI:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of page at hivemoderation.com)
AI detection tool Sightengine concluded that the image was not authentic and said there was an 88% chance the image was AI-generated:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of page at sightengine.com)
This was not the first AI-generated image used to spread the narrative about the supposed ties between Carney and Epstein. Earlier, Lead Stories debunked another similar claim. Lead Stories couldn't find images of the two together. However, in January 2025, the Toronto Sun (archived here) republished an August 2013 photo showing Maxwell standing between Carney and his wife in a public setting.
Mark Carney's name appears 69 times in the "Epstein library" on the Department of Justice website. However, many of those results were newsletters or notifications about Carney's public activities. Lead Stories didn't find evidence of him engaging in direct correspondence with Epstein.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of page at justice.gov/epstein)
