Searching the Epstein Files: Hollywood’s New Test of Fame (and Nerves)
Ctrl+F dread spreads as everyone who was anyone between 2008-2018 is name-dropped in a messy soup of the guilty, the adjacent, and the random
I’ve written for the New York Times, Vanity Fair and the New York Post and appeared in more than a dozen documentaries, including Netflix’s Bad Vegan, based in part on my reporting. I also wrote From Scratch: The Uncensored History of the Food Network.
There’s a new way to prove you’re somebody. Search the Epstein files.
You — yes, you — might appear in the three-million-page trove of newly released Department of Justice materials related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in jail in 2019.
Go ahead and search here and then here. I’ll wait, don’t worry.
Unless you need to worry.
Someone’s presence in the files released Jan. 30 does not mean they committed a crime or ever even had contact with the disgraced Epstein.
But the most voluminous release yet of documents related to Epstein is causing ripples across media and entertainment. Most of the emails, parties and conversations that have made headlines date from after his 2008 conviction in Florida, where he pled guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.
Every hour that goes by seems to wheel another big name into the circle of Epstein shame. And even the smallest association with him is enough to send the powerful (and power-adjacent) dialing their spin doctors. With enough legitimate degrees of separation from the man and his crimes, you can likely escape whatever PDF attachment or random email you turned up in with your reputation intact, because there are hundreds, maybe thousands, in your shoes.
In the files is a Ticketmaster marketing email from 2011 that starts: “Hi Jeffrey Epstein. Check out these events in New York. Your list of events is personalized to your preferences.” Whatever version of the algorithm we had 15 years ago suggested that Epstein might be interested in upcoming shows by The Who’s Roger Daltrey, Steely Dan, Blondie and Ray LaMontagne. Thus, they too are named in the Epstein files.
So are Sarah Jessica Parker, Robert De Niro, Christy Turlington, Anderson Cooper, Jane Fonda, Julianna Margulies and, well, kind of everyone who was anyone between about 2008 and 2018. These names appeared in news articles, marketing emails from Epstein’s inbox or other documents that landed in the files and were dumped without annotation into the public release that came about due to Congress passing the Epstein Files Transparency Act in late 2025.
Peering into the files, it becomes clear that if you were living, working or passing through New York City or Florida in the worlds of media, entertainment or politics during the peak decade of the files, there’s a solid chance you appear in there.
When Jon Stewart said on the Feb. 2 episode of The Daily Show that his name is in the files, the humor came easily — after all, his appearance is clearly incidental (“Of course, to get ahead of the story, I am also in the files. We all searched our names… right?”).
Stewart read from an email Epstein sent to producer Barry Josephson (Disney’s Enchanted, Fox’s Bones) on Aug. 19, 2015, in which Epstein writes about pal Woody Allen, “‘I suggested to Woody that he do a new stand-up routine for either Apple TV or Amazon... Make a true biographical experience with his stand-up being the capper. Somebody like Jon Stewart could host/narrate the biographical part.’”
The Daily Show host milked the moment: “Somebody like Jon Stewart, or Jon Stewart?! My point is, do I have the offer, or is this an audition?”
Hollywood’s Dishonor Roll
The crimes, of course, are not a punchline. Epstein was monstrous. What the dump does — intentionally or not — is scramble three categories into one searchable soup: the guilty, the adjacent, and the random.
And the widespread suspicion that there are people who were a part of his evils and who have still not been brought to justice seems buttressed by the documents in the new release, especially by the many names blacked out — including the sender of a March 11, 2014 email to Epstein that says: “Thank you for a fun night…Your littlest girl was a little naughty.”
Pressure is building to un-redact names — as happened this week when U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, having viewed un-redacted documents, revealed in a congressional floor speech that one of Dubai’s most powerful business executives, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, was named in the files. Khanna, a California Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, his GOP colleague from Kentucky, also revealed five other names that had been redacted.
I went bleary searching the files and barely made a dent. But from what’s been reported — and what I found — you can see the pattern: an influence Ponzi scheme, built on introductions, favors and the promise of proximity to power. Epstein worked every connection he could to get close to A-list people and act as their consigliere. Emails and photos are coming back to haunt figures including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Howard Lutnick, Richard Branson, Sergey Brin and David Copperfield, who all appear in the new files with vulgar or problematic words or deeds attributed to them.
So before we dive back into the parlor game of those innocently and accidentally caught up in the emails, let’s look at some of the entertainment world’s more entangled players (with receipts, of course):
CASEY WASSERMAN
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