In late 2025 and early 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice released millions of its files pertaining to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. With each new batch, people spread countless images online that supposedly had been found in the files — although they weren't all real photos, let alone from the Epstein files.
One image that spread widely allegedly showed a young woman or teenage girl giving a foot was to President Donald Trump and Epstein. Trump is wearing aviator sunglasses and a white towel, while it's unclear whether Epstein is naked or also in a towel. One Facebook user (archived), for example, wrote that the image was "From the DOJ files."
Social media users on Bluesky (archived), Threads and Instagram (archived) shared the image. X users shared the image in posts months apart (archived). The image also spread in posts in other languages, such as a Facebook post in Arabic (archived).
In short, the image of Trump and Epstein receiving a foot bath from a young woman was not an authentic photograph. It originated from an artist who creates images of public figures that are meant to look realistic but are, ultimately, not real. Therefore, we have rated this picture as a fake.
Alison Jackson, an English artist, first posted the image to Facebook, TikTok and X on Nov. 17, 2025.
According to the about page of Jackson's website, she creates images meant to be convincingly realistic:
Jackson raises questions about how we can't tell what is real or not anymore, and how we don't care. She creates convincingly realistic photographs, films and sculpture depicting celebrities doing things in private, images that we have all imagined but never seen before, using cleverly styled lookalikes.
A spokesperson for the artist confirmed to Snopes via email that the fake image originated from Jackson: "The image was created by Alison Jackson, she uses lookalikes of the public figures and makes them look realistic, she also uses Ai – it's a bit of both."
Evidence of AI generation within the image
A couple of details within the image hinted that it was created with artificial intelligence tools.
For example, Trump's right hand appears to be missing a finger or two. The three fingers visible on that hand are likely the thumb, index finger and middle finger. The index finger is longer than the middle finger and unusually thick, resembling a thumb more than it does a finger.
Additionally, the lighting of Trump's aviator sunglasses appears to be off. In general, you should be able to see through a pair of aviator sunglasses, at least partially, unless there is a reflection on the lenses. However, the lenses of Trump's sunglasses are pitch black and don't reflect the camera's flash despite the lighting of the image suggesting it was a flash photo.