Fact-Check Summary Before Rewrite:
Several claims in the original article are misleading or inaccurate by conflation. The DOJ itself clarified that appearing in the files is not evidence of any relationship with Epstein — many names appear only because they were mentioned in news clippings, newsletters, or email threads entirely unrelated to Epstein’s crimes. Claims about Beyoncé, Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin, Meghan Markle, and others are either unverified, contextually distorted, or drawn from the broadly compiled “politically exposed persons” list — not from direct contact with Epstein. The original article blurs this crucial distinction. Here is the responsibly rewritten version:

The Epstein Files and Famous Women: What the Records Actually Say — and What They Don’t
When the U.S. Department of Justice began releasing millions of documents tied to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the world leaned in. What emerged wasn’t so much a smoking gun as an enormous, messy archive — one that is already being misread in dangerous ways.
Here’s the truth that too many headlines are burying: a name appearing in the Epstein files does not mean that person had any meaningful contact with Epstein, let alone committed wrongdoing. The DOJ’s own letter to Congress, signed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, acknowledged that “names appear in the files released under the Act in a wide variety of contexts,” with some individuals mentioned only in press clippings or documents entirely unrelated to Epstein’s crimes. CNN
With that essential disclaimer in place, what do the files actually show regarding prominent women?
What the Files Are — and Aren’t
The Epstein files comprise over six million pages, including emails, photographs, flight logs, contact books, and court documents, totaling more than 300 gigabytes of data. Wikipedia So far, about 3.5 million pages have been made public, among them 180,000 images and 2,000 videos. Wikipedia The sheer volume practically guarantees that peripheral mentions of thousands of public figures will surface.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a co-author of the law that compelled the release, warned that the DOJ is “purposefully muddying the waters on who was a predator and who was mentioned in an email” by releasing an undifferentiated list of over 300 prominent people. CNN That caution is worth keeping front of mind.
The Women with Documented Ties to Epstein’s Network
Of all the women mentioned, Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, has the most substantiated and long-acknowledged connection. She appears in photographs among the thousands of documents released in December 2025 Fox Baltimore, and prior reporting has confirmed that Epstein loaned her money and the two maintained a correspondence. Emails in the files show Ferguson describing him as a trusted confidant.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted accomplice and the central female figure in his criminal operation, is referenced extensively throughout the documents. She appears in multiple photographs, including one on an airport runway with comedian Chris Tucker. Fox Baltimore
Melinda Gates appears in the files in connection with philanthropic and business correspondence. Her ex-husband Bill Gates’s name also surfaces; a 2014 email showed MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito writing that a $2 million gift from Gates had been “directed by Jeffrey Epstein,” a characterization Gates’s spokesman called “completely false.” Wikipedia
The Broader, More Contested List
The DOJ’s “politically exposed persons” list — sent to Congress to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act — includes presidents, business leaders, government officials, and cultural figures who have died, such as Princess Diana, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson. CNN Their inclusion reflects the breadth of Epstein’s correspondence and media coverage, not any evidence of participation in his crimes.
New photographs released in December 2025 show musicians Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross in images with Epstein, at times alongside people whose faces were redacted. Al Jazeera These are photographs from social events — their existence does not constitute an allegation.
Names like Monica Lewinsky, Amy Schumer, Rosie O’Donnell, and Alyssa Milano appear in the broader document trove, most commonly in the context of industry events, email introductions, or guest lists. No evidence in the released files suggests any of these women had a direct relationship with Epstein.
For figures like Marilyn Monroe and Janis Joplin — both of whom died decades before Epstein’s alleged crimes began — references are purely contextual or historical, perhaps appearing in correspondence about art, culture, or framing within Epstein’s vast email archive.
The Victims Are Being Overlooked
Perhaps the most disturbing irony in the media frenzy over celebrity names is how little attention has gone to the actual survivors. Attorneys for a group of survivors say the DOJ failed to redact the identities of at least 31 people who were victimized as children, with Skye Roberts, brother of the late Virginia Giuffre, stating: “They’re redacting the names of perpetrators and they’re unredacting the names of victims — quite the opposite of what the Epstein Files Transparency Act was meant to do.” CBS News
Epstein survivor Maria Farmer, whose 1996 FBI complaint was one of the first ever filed against Epstein, finally saw that complaint made public in the December 2025 release — a moment she and her sister had waited years for. CNN
The Takeaway
The Epstein files are a sprawling historical record of one of the most disturbing cases in modern American legal history. They deserve serious, careful analysis — not viral listicles that treat a passing mention in a newsletter as equivalent to criminal association.
The women most prominently named with substantiated ties to Epstein’s world are already well known: Maxwell, Ferguson, and a handful of others with documented correspondence or travel. For the vast majority of names flooding social media, the honest answer is the same one the DOJ itself offered: context matters, and most of it hasn’t been read yet.