A photo showing American singer and songwriter Taylor Swift sitting with a man is going viral, with people claiming the man to be American financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
How did we find out?: We ran a Google reverse image search on the picture and found older posts of the same image from December 2021 on social media platforms.
A Taylor Swift fan page had posted this image on Facebook on 16 December 2021.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
We also found a photo 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."
This is also the post where Taylor announced that she had signed with Republic Records.
Lipman can be seen on the right.
Another post on X (formerly Twitter) by a fan page, a photo of Taylor with Lipman can be seen.
According to report by TIME Magazine, the recently disclosed court documents related to Epstein mentioned names of several well-known individuals and politicians, including former US Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, and Prince Andrew.
However, Taylor Swift's name was not included in the list.
Comparing the two individuals: On comparing pictures of Epstein and Lipman, it further made it clear that there are no similarities between both the individuals.
A comparison between pictures of Epstein and Lipman.
(Source: Wikimedia Commons/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)
Conclusion: Social media users have misidentified Monte Lipman for Jeffrey Epstein in the photo with Taylor Swift.
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