Was a bearded Jeffrey Epstein photographed walking in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2026? No, that's not true: Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019. The image is AI-generated. Some versions of the image circulating on social media have been cropped, but the full-size image shows the Gemini AI Sparkle watermark in the lower right corner.
Two cropped versions of the fake image appeared in a post (archived here) published by @Coleidoscopes on Feb. 5, 2026. The post was captioned:
This is Epstein, isn't it?
Screenshots of the images are pictured below:
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from x.com/Coleidoscopes/status/2019457689605079171.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from x.com/Coleidoscopes/status/2019457689605079171.)
Another post on X contains the full AI-generated image (pictured below). The post was published (archived here) on Feb. 5, 2026 by @Ysf34A. It was captioned in Turkish; the automatic translation reads:
Epstein is still alive. His death is completely a lie... And on another island, the system continues.
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from https://x.com/Ysf34A/status/2019393296360173741.)
In the image above, the diamond shaped Sparkle icon (archived here) of Google's Gemini AI can be seen in the lower right corner.
Other fact checks
This claim was also investigated by AFP Fact Check, Newschecker and PolitiFact.
