--- title: "Fortnite Pushes Back Against Claims That Jeffrey Epstein Is Still Alive and Gaming" description: "Fortnite issued a statement clarifying that Jeffrey Epstein is not alive and not playing Fortnite, amid conspiracy theories." date: "2026-02-08" modified: "2026-02-08" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/future-society/fortnite-epstein" categories: - "Future Society" --- # Fortnite Pushes Back Against Claims That Jeffrey Epstein Is Still Alive and Gaming ![Hands holding a video game controller, with a person wearing a blue shirt and white t-shirt in the background, illuminated by purple and pink lighting. A laptop is partially visible on the table in front.]() *Getty / Futurism* Suspicious as the circumstances surrounding his death may have been, there's a broad consensus that Jeffrey Epstein did in fact die in 2019. Unless, that is, you're the type of person that believes everything you see on X, in which case the convicted child sex offender is alive and well in Israel, where he spends his free time pubstomping scrubs in Fortnite. This appears to be something people actually believe, stemming from the discovery of what might be Epstein's YouTube account in the latest batch of files. A [receipt]() sent to his email for a movie purchased on the platform — Alfred Hitchcock's "Frenzy" — revealed the username "littlestjeff1." Amateur sleuths then discovered a Fortnite account with the same account name, which online trackers showed was based in Israel and active as recently as 2025. Conspiracy theories [ensued](), going [viral on X](). So Epstein is still among the living? Not according to Fortnite's team, which says this is just some prankster's idea of a sick joke. "Hey Official Fortnite here — this was a ruse by a Fortnite player," the account [said](). "A few days ago, an existing Fortnite account owner changed their username from something totally unrelated to littlestjeff1, following the revelation of littlestjeff1 as a name on YouTube. These Fortnite trackers only display your current name, not any prior changes to it." "We have no record of the subject's email addresses referenced in the public document existing in the Epic account system," the statement added. "Since the public document releases, people have created Fortnite accounts with similar-looking email addresses and user names." The conspiracy theorists were perhaps fueled by Epstein's apparent ties to the Israeli government, including [frequent correspondence]() with former prime minister and minister of defense Ehud Barak. And not backing down from the official Fortnite narrative, they claim that one of the files shows a receipt of Epstein purchasing V-Bucks, Fortnite's in-game currency, in 2019. But that isn't the case. There appears to be only one reference to V-Bucks in the files, and it's an [email]() with a redacted sender and recipient sent in May 2019 clarifying that there was a $25.95 charge for the Fortnite currency. And it's referenced as "VBucks," not its proper hyphenated name. The email is not an actual receipt, and it doesn't show it was sent to Epstein. "Someone's been having fun renaming their Fortnite account," [wrote]() Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, "but it's recent and not connected to the email addresses in the archive." What's more interesting than this latest conspiracy theory is the fact that Fortnite felt compelled to clear the air at all — a sure sign of how high-strung everyone is feeling about Epstein's wide web of deep connections. **More on Epstein:** [*Internet Sleuths Just Found Something About Elon Musk Getting a Massage in the Epstein Files*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()