Florida man goes viral for ‘crazy’ likeness: ‘I’m not Jeffrey Epstein. I’m Palm Beach Pete!’
ByAdam Silverstein
Published March 20, 2026, 7:32 a.m. ET
164 Comments
A Florida man has been forced to shoot down the latest Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy — after becoming “a viral sensation” for being the spitting image of the notorious sex trafficker.
The silver-haired, square-jawed stranger found himself unexpectedly going viral after someone filmed him driving his convertible down a highway in the Sunshine State, suggesting he was the pedophile who had a Florida home and who many conspiracy theorists refuse to believe is dead.
“Epstein is alive! Epstein is alive!” the man who shot the video yelled, sending social media into meltdown.
The driver later addressed how his phone started “blowing up” after “some dude randomly filmed me while I was driving on I-95, unbeknownst to me.
“And the next thing I know, I’m a viral sensation,” he said in an Instagram clip liked more than a million times.
“I’m not Jeffrey Epstein. I’m Palm Beach Pete!”
Many netizens were still amazed at the uncanny likeness, with some wondering why Palm Beach Pete hadn’t done more to disguise his look.
“Dude has to get this constantly. Time to grow a beard,” one person wrote, while others joked the infamous financier had somehow staged a Sunshine-State comeback.
Others, meanwhile, quipped about conspiracies that Epstein’s death wasn’t a suicide but a murder by mysterious dark forces.
“I’m sorry to hear about your car accident next week man,” one commentator quipped.
The resemblance was enough to keep the rumor mill spinning, especially given the lingering fascination around Epstein’s death. The disgraced tycoon died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019, a death officially ruled a suicide, but one that continues to fuel speculation online.
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The story has stayed in the headlines as the US Department of Justice releases batches of files tied to Epstein, following pressure from lawmakers and a law requiring broader disclosure — though not all documents have been made public, and some material remains redacted beyond victims’ names.
