The viral image does not show Taylor Swift with Jeffrey Epstein

The person in the viral image with Taylor Swift is not Jeffrey Epstein, but Monte Lipman, the CEO of Republic Records.

An image of American singer and songwriter Taylor Swift with her arm around a man is going viral on social media. The users who share the image claim that the man to be American financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Hundreds of pages of court filings related to a lawsuit against Ghislane Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator in a scheme to exploit and sexually abuse minors, were released recently. Those records contain the names of dozens of celebrities, politicians, and other public figures. Against this backdrop this image of Swift has gone viral. But Taylor Swift’s name was not included in the list.

“The caption of the viral post states, “Wow Taylor swift with Jeffery epstein.

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Fact Check- 

A reverse image search of the image led us to the older posts and pictures of the same image from December 2021 on social media platforms. The original image was posted on Instagram on 16 December 2021, more than two years after Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in a jail cell while awaiting trial. 

The person posing with Taylor Swift is actually Monte Lipman, the co-founder and CEO of Republic Records, a division of Universal Music Group. 

In further search, we found that the Taylor Swift fan accounts also shared the picture and identified the man beside her as Monte Lipman, CEO and co-founder of Republic Records, a unit of Universal Music Group

We also found an image posted by Taylor Swift on her official Instagram account with Lipman and one another person on 19 November 2018 with the caption, “My New Home.”Monte Lipman can be seen on the right.

According to the Rolling Stone, Taylor Swift signed her record deal with Republic in 2018.

A visual comparison between Jeffrey Epstein and Monte Lipman has been shown below.

From these evidences we can clearly understand that Social media users have misidentified Monte Lipman for Jeffrey Epstein in the image with Taylor Swift.

Conclusion- 

Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the viral image to be False. The person in the viral image with Taylor Swift is not Jeffrey Epstein, but Monte Lipman, the CEO of Republic Records.