Claim:
A photo authentically shows U.S. first lady Melania Trump kissing the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on his cheek.
Rating:
In 2025, online users shared a rumor claiming a photo showed U.S. first lady Melania Trump kissing the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on his cheek. The image, which made the rounds in November 2025 following President Donald Trump’s signing of a bill to release case files related to Epstein’s sex crimes, had also been shared earlier in the year.
For example, on Aug. 16, a Threads user posted (archived) the alleged picture with a sarcastic caption reading, “What a travesty! Trying to say our First Lady had ANYTHING to do with this Epstein guy!” The caption then featured a flushed face emoji, ending with, “….never mind.”
(@whiffney/Threads)
Other users shared the purported photo, including posts with the same caption, on Bluesky (archived) Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads and X (archived).
A Snopes reader also emailed us asking about the supposed picture, “Is this a genuine photo of Melania Trump kissing Epstein?”
In short, the image was fake and generated with artificial intelligence.
The aforementioned Threads user posted at least two other inauthentic (archived) pictures (archived) of Donald Trump, both of which we previously reported about.
Examining the AI-generated photo
In the AI-generated photo of Melania Trump and Epstein, Epstein’s facial features — in particular the size of his lips — did not match any authentic pictures of him.
No news media outlets ever credibly reported the photo as being real.
AI-detection tools including the AI or Not website and the University of Buffalo Media Forensics Lab’s Deepfake-O-Meter both found mixed results when determining the picture’s authenticity. The AI or Not website displayed a misleading result of “likely real.” The Deepfake-O-Meter’s detection models mostly wrongly found a low likelihood of AI. Tools that claim to detect AI in photos, text and videos often display unreliable results.
Finding the origins of the fake picture
On Aug. 12, the Lead Stories fact-checking website reported about the inauthentic nature of the same picture, tracing its roots from an August X post (archived) displaying a YouTube video thumbnail image. That YouTube video’s title read, “Trump GOES NUTS After Stephen Colbert AIRS Melania’s UNSEEN Epstein Secrets On Live TV.”
(@AnnieForTruth/X)
As of December 2025, YouTube searches located no popular videos with the same title and thumbnail image, possibly indicating the user in control of the channel — or YouTube — removed the video or channel. One video with very few views displayed the same fake photo, while another video showed a similar AI-generated picture of the first lady kissing Epstein.
For further reading, we previously reported about an authentic picture from 2000 showing Donald and the future first lady, then Melania Knauss, posing with Epstein and his confidant, convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as another photo of Trump and Knauss with Maxwell. We also published an article about a rumor that Melania Trump once modeled partially nude on an airplane owned by Epstein, as well as a claim she was an escort before meeting Donald Trump at a party hosted by Maxwell.
Sources
Duke, Alan. “Fact Check: Photo Of Melania Trump Kissing Jeffrey Epstein Is Fake — Colbert Didn’t Air It.” Lead Stories, 12 Aug. 2025, https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2025/08/fact-check-photo-of-melania-kissing-epstein-is-fake.html.
Kim, Seung Min. “Trump Signs Bill to Release Jeffrey Epstein Case Files after Fighting It for Months.” The Associated Press, 20 Nov. 2025, https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-justice-department-4872c23a3ed03bf3d4c526581d3aed59.
MartÃnez, A. “Ghislaine Maxwell Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Overturn Her Conviction.” NPR, 29 July 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/07/29/nx-s1-5482993/ghislaine-maxwell-asks-u-s-supreme-court-to-overturn-her-conviction.
“What to Know about the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein Files.” The Associated Press, 20 Nov. 2025, https://apnews.com/video/what-to-know-about-the-justice-departments-jeffrey-epstein-files-365db927447844868521ba18862cbcff.
