Truth behind viral photo feeding conspiracy theory that 'Jeffrey Epstein is alive in Israel'

An alleged photo of Jeffrey Epstein walking around alive and well has finally been explained.

Conspiracy theorists had a field day after the snap surfaced, with many believing that the disgraced financier could really still be around and had faked his death.

Epstein was confirmed to have taken his own life in his New York jail cell, where guards found him as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. However, conspiracies around his death have raged on in the years since.

Back in November, the US House of Representatives in November 2025 votes to release all files on the case as part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, with President Donald Trump signing the bill the next day.

People said the man in the image looked similar to Epstein (Neil Rasmus/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

Millions of emails, files, and images have now been made public for the first time, with the most recent batch containing over three million documents.

They are readily available on the US Department of Justice website, with images showing Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor above a woman on the floor.

But one image which generated interest last week wasn't part of the files - an image of 'Epstein' walking in a group through Israel.

It turns out it was AI-generated, as confirmed by Google's AI tools.

A digital analysis revealed that the original image contains a SynthID watermark, meaning that 'most or all of it was edited or generated using Google’s AI tools', says Google Gemini.

There's also a Gemini diamond watermark in the bottom-right corner of the original photo, which was left out of the cropped picture which circulated online.

Some started to believe that Epstein didn't take his own life due to this photo (X)

People had reposted the photo, writing that Epstein was 'alive in Tel Aviv Israel', but as confirmed by authorities in August 2019, he died in his prison cell.

Gullible online users weren't the only believers of this outlandish theory, though, as Lady Victoria Hervey, the ex-girlfriend of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, also claimed that the financier was still around.

Hervey was mentioned in the files 23 times, telling LBC last week: "Well, of course I am (in the Epstein files). Because it's any journalist who wrote about it."

Many would hope that their names weren't in the files, but Hervey claimed that it was an 'insult' to the wealthy if their name wasn't mentioned.

"If you were on the scene and you were powerful, to be honest, if you're not in those files, it would be an insult because it just means that you were a bit of a loser," she claimed.

Hervey, who dated Andrew briefly in 1999, went on to make the claim that Epstein was never really dead.

Hervey claimed that Epstein is still alive and that rich people wanted to be mentioned in the files (Dave Benett/Getty Images)

"I don't even think Jeffrey Epstein's dead anymore, to be honest," she said, adding that she thinks he could be in Israel.

Speaking to host Tom Swarbrick, she elaborated: "I think, just, I'd seen one of those emails, one of the ones that ended up in the files, and I think that prison guard needs to be interviewed. The one that he said he saw the bodies being switched out."

The theory - which seemed to originate from someone claiming to be a guard on the forum 4Chan - says that Epstein was 'switched out' and taken away by a 'trip van' on that day seven years ago, and he faked his own death to live his life with no punishments.