Epic Calls ‘Jefferey Epstein Is Alive’ Fortnite Conspiracy A Hoax

Epic Games shot down rumors that a Fortnite account sharing the same username as a YouTube account owned by Jeffrey Epstein belonged to the deceased financier.  The company called it a “ruse” apparently orchestrated by random Fortnite players attempting to spoof the alias leaked in last week’s trove of Epstein files. 

The clarification followed several viral conspiratorial posts online alleging Epstein was still alive because of a Fortnite account thought to be linked to him appearing to be active following his death back on August 10, 2019. The most popular post regarding the littlestjeff1 Fortnite account came from user Pirat_Nation on X.

DOJ

The post in question featured several screenshots of documents from the 3 million new Epstein files released by the Department of Justice on January 30 arranged in a pinboard-like fashion to claim something wasn’t adding up about the convicted felon’s death. 

One file revealed that Jeffrey Epstein had a YouTube account under the username littlestjeff1, and had purchased a film titled Frenzy using the account on October 25, 2014. Another file includes a $25.95 receipt for Fortnite V-Bucks on May 7, 2019 (although said receipt makes no mention of the littlestjeff1 username).

The littlestjeff1 Fortnite account was spoofed

A Fortnite account registered under the name littlestjeff1 was discovered using the website Fortnite Tracker. The account was in use during Fortnite’s Chapter 5, Season 1, which began on December 3, 2023. This led to the conspiracy that Epstein’s death was somehow faked and he was holed up somewhere in the world playing Fortnite. Suggestions that the account was active in Israel, leaning into speculation about whether Epstein at one point worked as a spy for the Israeli government, only added to the online drama.

Things spread far and wide enough that the official Fortnite Status X account addressed Pirat_Nation’s post directly to refuted the theory. “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,” the company wrote on February 6. “These Fortnite trackers only display your current name, not any prior changes to it.”

The company also clarified that it has “no record of the subject’s email addresses referenced in the public document existing in the Epic account system.” According to Epic, since the public document listing the littlestjeff1 account was released, several people have “created Fortnite accounts with similar-looking email addresses and user names.”

While it’s still not clear who the Fortnite V-Bucks purchase in the Epstein files refers to, he did have an Xbox account. The Microsoft platform ended up banning him after he became a registered sex offender.