What was claimed
Images show Zohran Mamdani as a child photographed with Jeffrey Epstein.
Our verdict
These images aren’t real and were made using artificial intelligence.
Pictures of a young Zohran Mamdani with Jeffrey Epstein aren’t real
Fake viral images appear to show a young Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York, with the convicted sex offender Jeffrery Epstein. We’ve established that they were made with artificial intelligence.
These images have been spreading online since the US Department of Justice released more files related to Epstein, including an email to him from publicist Peggy Siegal which mentioned Mr Mamdani’s mother, the film director Mira Nair.
The email said: “Just left Ghislaine's townhouse...after party for film. Bill Clinton and Jeff Bezos were there...Jean Pigoni, director Mira Nair....etc.
“Film received tepid reaction although women like it much more...Hillary Swank and Gere at stupid party in Bloomingdales cheap sportwear department”.
There is no suggestion that being named in the documents implies any wrongdoing and this email does not make any accusations about Ms Nair or provide any evidence of deeper connections to Epstein. Ms Nair directed the film Amelia in 2009, which starred Hilary Swank and Richard Gere.
The images, which supposedly show Mr Mamdani as a baby with his mother, Epstein and Mr Clinton, as a child on a beach with Epstein, Maxwell, Mr Clinton, Mr Bezos and Bill Gates and on a street with the same group, were posted by and watermarked with the handle of an account on X that is labelled as a “parody account”. The account’s bio says it’s an “AI-powered meme engine that turns stupidity into content”.
However, many social media users resharing the images appear to think they are genuine.
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When Full Fact put these images into Google’s reverse image search, it flagged that they were all “made with Google AI”, meaning they were generated or edited with one of several Google AI products.
Mr Mamdani would have been 18 in 2009, when Ms Nair was mentioned in the email, much older than the baby or child in the fake viral images, as the parody account itself acknowledges, saying “I purposely made him a baby which would technically make this pic 34 years old”.
Altered and manipulated videos and images can cause misinformation to spread widely online. It’s important to consider whether something is genuine before sharing. Our guides to spotting misleading images and videos can help you to do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as altered because these images aren’t real and were made using artificial intelligence.