What we know about the photo of James Brown with Trump and Epstein

In late July 2025, as investigations continued into U.S. President Donald Trump's connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an old photo purportedly showing the two men posing with singer James Brown circulated on social media.

A July 24 X post (archived) featuring the photo read: "Holy s***, Trump has more photos with Epstein than his own family. You couldn't separate them."

The post had gained over 306,000 views as of this writing. Similar claims appeared on X (archived) as well as on Threads (archived) and Reddit (archived).

Snopes has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of the image, and as a result we've refrained from rating the claim. However, we found no indication that the image was fake or manipulated, and our investigation found that The New York Times was the first to publicly share the photo in a July 24 article. "We are confident in the authenticity of the photo," a Times spokesperson said via email.

The article (archived) in question focused on a rumored book of alleged birthday messages to Epstein — including one from Trump — that the Times said it independently reviewed, without naming a specific source. The reporters included this photo in their coverage, writing:

The Times also reviewed a previously undisclosed photo of Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein with the singer James Brown. It isn't clear where the photo was taken. Mr. Brown regularly performed in Atlantic City, N.J., where Mr. Trump owned the Taj Mahal casino. 

In the photo, Mr. Brown is flanked by Mr. Epstein, who is wearing a white turtleneck and dark blazer, and Mr. Trump, wearing a suit and a pink tie.

The Times did not specify when the image was taken, though the article's focus on the birthday book raised questions about whether the photo may have been taken at Epstein's 50th birthday party or another related event. Epstein, who was born (archived) in 1953, turned 50 in 2003, three years before Brown died (archived) in 2006.

No TinEye (archived) results for the image had a date earlier than the publication of the Times article, indicating that the newspaper was indeed the first to publish it. The image did not appear on Getty Images, a reputable photo agency, and we also did not find any examples on that platform of Brown in the outfit shown in the photo, suggesting the image came from a private event rather than one with professional news photographers present.

Also, there was no indication that the photo was the product of artificial intelligence (AI) or other digital editing tools. For example, Hive Moderation's detection tool flagged the image as "not likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content." Another AI image detector, Sightengine, similarly determined that it was "not likely to be AI-generated or deepfake."