Man insists ‘I am not Jeffrey Epstein’ after driving video goes viral

‘Palm Beach Pete’ is a man from Florida who bears an uncanny resemblance to the late Jeffrey Epstein, becoming the subject of a viral video which circulated earlier this month

A man has been forced to insist he is not the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – rather, that it’s just an unfortunate resemblance.

Epstein passed away in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019, where he was incarcerated for numerous horrific alleged crimes. Perhaps a surprise then, when one Florida man thought he spied the disgraced financier driving alongside him earlier this month.

In the now viral clip, the surprised man behind the camera can be heard yelling: “Epstein is alive! Epstein is alive!” while a middle-aged man drives alongside his vehicle in a drop-top on Interstate 95 in Florida.

The driver – a man with white hair and sharp features resembling Epstein – has now spoken out about the viral clip.

“Hi everyone, Palm Beach Pete here,” the man said into his phone camera. “I want to thank everybody for the positive comments I got from saying I’m not Jeffrey Epstein. I’m so not Jeffrey Epstein, I’m me being me.”

“I’m just going off into town, play some tennis… have some lunch. I’m not Epstein.”

Pete also emphasised: “[Epstein is] a very bad person, what he did, obviously, and he is dead. And I’m alive.”

“Some dude randomly filmed me while I was driving on I-95, unbeknownst to me,” he said in a separate clip that later received 1 million likes, adding that his phone started “blowing up” soon after. “And the next thing I know, I’m a viral sensation.”

Social media users flooded comment sections, with many stunned by the resemblance and others joking that Epstein had somehow staged a return.

One top commenter joked: “This is his innocent twin Effrey Jepstein.”

Epstein, a convicted sex offender with connections to influential figures like former President Bill Clinton, perished in a Manhattan prison cell in 2019. His death was officially declared a suicide, although it has continued to fuel extensive public speculation and conspiracy theories.

Fascination with Epstein has endured partly because of continuing document releases by the Department of Justice (DOJ) under The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was enacted in November.

Despite the viral attention, Pete insisted the situation was merely a case of mistaken identity.