Image of UFC's Strickland in shirt linking Trump to Epstein is AI
- Published on June 18, 2026 at 19:10
- 4 min read
- By Stevie ROSENFELD, AFP USA
Law enforcement removed Ultimate Fighting Championship star Sean Strickland from a cage fight event at the White House, but an image depicting him restrained while wearing a T-shirt with the text, "Trump is in the Epstein files" was generated with artificial intelligence. A photo distributed by AFP and video the fighter shared on his social media show he wore a black hoodie and an energy drink-branded shirt.
"This should be an album cover," reads the caption accompanying an image posted on June 15, 2026, by an X user who claims to associate with global hacking movement "Anonymous."
Similar images circulated across Instagram and Facebook showing Strickland wearing variations of the slogan and referencing the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after the mixed martial arts champion was removed by United States Park Police from the June 14 event organized as part of America's 250th anniversary celebrations.
Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, had long-standing ties to political and business elites.
His case has remained politically charged, with continuing disputes over the release of investigative records into the extent of his network, including the nature of his relationship with US President Donald Trump.
But there is no evidence Strickland wore a shirt referencing the files as he tried to access the event held at the White House.
A picture captured by Kevin Dietsch and distributed by AFP from the UFC spectacle shows Strickland wearing a black hoodie over a black t-shirt bearing the Monster Energy brand logo as he is surrounded by law enforcement officers. He is also wearing a backward baseball cap, absent from the images shared on social media.
Instagram posts from Strickland from the same day show him wearing the same outfit (archived here and here).
The picture of his removal also shows Strickland's hands at his sides, not secured behind his back.
Google's SynthID Detector, a tool that identifies content generated by the company's own AI tools, found an invisible watermark indicative of a synthetic image.
The Hive Moderation AI Detection tool found the image was likely to contain AI-genereated content.
The image also shows visual inconsistencies commonly found in content generated by artificial intelligence including a patch seen on the chest of a US Marshal that reads "IS" instead of "US" and a police officer's vest displaying distorted lettering.
AFP reached out to law enforcement for more details on Strickland's removal and attire, but a response was not forthcoming.
Emily Williams, acting chief at the US Marshals Service Office of Public Affairs, told fact checking organization Lead Stories that the Epstein "shirt was AI."
Strickland claimed he was banned from attending the fights for criticizing Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and their actions in the war against Iran (archived here).
UFC CEO Dana White said Strickland was not banned, but was not invited due to limited space and his past aggressive behavior (archived here).
Read more of AFP's reporting on misinformation in the United States here.
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