Dramatic footage that some have claimed shows ‘Jeffrey Epstein’ driving with the roof down in Florida has forced a lookalike to defend himself as “just Pete”.
The viral footage showed a man with a striking resemblance to the disgraced financier driving down a highway in Florida.
“Epstein is alive! Epstein is alive!” the man filming yelled, sending social media spiralling.
The man in the viral video responded on Instagram, insisting: “I’m not Jeffrey Epstein. I’m Palm Beach Pete!”
He bears a striking resemblance to the late sex offender, who had a home in Florida before his 2019 death in a New York prison cell.
Palm Beach Pete said his phone had started “blowing up” after “some dude randomly filmed me while I was driving on I-95, unbeknown to me”.
The video claiming the driver was Epstein spread like wildfire.
The lookalike said: “The next thing I know, I’m a viral sensation.
“I had my phone down for about four hours and didn’t know my phone was blowing up with all these comments from that video.
“It got a lot of traction it’s pretty crazy.”
Palm Beach Pete’s Instagram account has even been named “Not Epstein” as he bats away conspiracy theories that he really is the dead pedophile.
In another video, he thanked people for their support, saying: “I’m just Palm Beach Pete, going in to play some tennis today.
“I’m so not Jeffrey Epstein I’m just me being me.”
He added: “I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein.
“He’s a very bad person, what he did obviously. And he is dead. And I’m alive.”
Some commenters quipped that he should grow a beard, or find a way to change his look so that he is not mistaken for the dead sex offender.
One wrote: “Dude has to get this constantly. Time to grow a beard.”
Others suggested that Epstein had somehow come back to life, or cracked jokes about theories that the financier’s death was not really a suicide.
A commenter said: “I’m sorry to hear about your car accident next week man.”
Epstein’s death was officially ruled a suicide by the FBI.
This article originally appeared in The Sun and was reproduced here with permission.
