Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Shockingly Extensive Gaming History

Buried in the Department of Justice’s three-million-page Epstein document dump is an unexpected subplot: Jeffrey Epstein was a gamer.

Not a casual one, either. The files — released Jan. 30 as part of a sprawling DOJ disclosure — paint a portrait of a convicted sex offender who maintained an active presence across multiple gaming platforms for years, who corresponded with some of the video game industry’s most powerful executives about monetizing children, and whose username is now at the center of a viral conspiracy theory alleging he’s still alive and playing Fortnite from Israel. (RELATED: Prince Andrew’s Epstein Nightmare Just Got Even Worse)

The saga begins with Xbox Live.

Documents show Epstein received a “Welcome to Xbox Live” email on Oct. 31, 2012. He had been a registered sex offender since 2008, and Microsoft had joined New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s “Operation: Game Over” initiative to purge sex offenders from online gaming platforms six months earlier, in April 2012.

Despite that, Epstein’s account remained active for roughly 14 months.

On Dec. 19, 2013, Microsoft finally pulled the plug. An automated enforcement email sent to Epstein’s “[email protected]” address cited “harassment, threats, and/or abuse of other players,” describing the conduct as “severe, repeated, and/or excessive.” A follow-up email the same day provided the real explanation: “This action is based on the New York Attorney General’s partnership with Microsoft and other online gaming companies to remove New York registered sex offenders from online gaming services to minimize the risk to others, particularly children.”

the ban was related to the policy of the New York Attorney General’s partnership with Microsoft and other gaming companies to remove New York registered sex offenders from online gaming services pic.twitter.com/gVaF5T97jy

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) January 30, 2026

The ban didn’t end Epstein’s relationship with Xbox. In July 2014, he fired off an email to an associate: “do we have an xbox 360 kinect?” In 2016, another message discussed purchasing an Xbox as a birthday present for a boy. And in 2019, someone associated with the account was lodging complaints about a mysterious $25.24 Xbox charge.

But the Xbox ban is, in truth, the least peculiar gaming revelation in the files. That distinction belongs to Epstein’s apparent relationship with Bobby Kotick, the former CEO of Activision Blizzard — the publisher behind Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, and among the most formidable money-printing operations the video game industry has ever produced.

Kotick’s name appears nearly 300 times in the Epstein files. The two exchanged more than a dozen emails, Kotaku reported, beginning in 2012. Epstein’s itinerary for November 2012 listed dinner with Kotick in New York. “bobby Kotick came over last night… hes great,” Epstein wrote to Next Model Management cofounder Faith Kates in November 2012. In December 2012, Kotick told Epstein he “wished would [sic] could have stopped by the island” following a Caribbean vacation.

The correspondence continued into May 2013, when Epstein forwarded Kotick a long and erratic email — written by Pablos Holman, who advertises himself as a “hacker inventing & building new technologies” — proposing, in essence, that video games replace traditional education by appealing to the baser instincts of fifth-grade boys.

The specifics were vivid. A door in a video game could open to reveal “a hot princess with big tits and a thong” to motivate children to learn Japanese. “Edutainment is for pussies,” Holman observed. “We need educational subversion!”

Kotick replied: “X prize is a good idea but key is real world rewards. Learn to read: earn cell phone minutes, iPhone credits, virtual items in games.”

Epstein forwarded Kotick’s response to Holman, who wrote back: “I’m all for indoctrinating kids into an economy. You gotta love how his [e]xample for ‘real world rewards’ is ‘virtual items in games.’”

The exchange occurred on May 3, 2013 — weeks after Activision rolled out its first-ever microtransactions in Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Forbes reported at the time. Black Ops II was the first Call of Duty title to feature microtransactions, a revenue model that has since generated billions across the gaming industry and drawn persistent criticism for targeting young players.

To be clear: nothing in the files suggests Epstein was personally whiteboarding monetization strategy at Activision headquarters. Kotick and Holman did the actual proposing.

Then there’s 4chan.

In May 2017, Epstein emailed his girlfriend Karyna Shuliak a link to a 4chan thread featuring pornographic animations of characters from Five Nights at Freddy’s, a popular horror video game franchise. The subject line read simply: “amazing animations.” The content, made in Source Filmmaker, was verified by Kotaku through the DOJ files and 4chan archives.

This image is going around, you can verify the contents via 4chan archives and the latest email release. Don’t, but also this wasn’t a joke but 100% serious. We are in hell.

[image or embed]

— James Galizio (@theswweet.myatproto.social) Jan 30, 2026 at 8:19 PM

The files also show a $25.95 purchase of Fortnite V-Bucks on May 7, 2019 — roughly three months before Epstein’s death in federal custody. V-Bucks are Fortnite’s in-game currency, used primarily to buy character outfits. The purchase was tied to the username “littlestjeff1,” which also appeared on a YouTube subscription receipt in the files.

Since we now apparently live in a reality where the most bizarre possibility is what is real, we have to inform you that Jeffrey Epstein‘s Fortnite account is live and active in Israel multiple times in the last year alone. pic.twitter.com/MVGQ6ErZda

— Dissident Media (@DissidentMedia) February 5, 2026

That username has since become the center of a sprawling internet conspiracy. Once it surfaced, armchair sleuths typed “littlestjeff1” into every public tracker they could find. What came back was a Fortnite account under that handle showing gameplay statistics running well into Chapter 5 Season 1 — years after Epstein’s documented death in August 2019. Screenshots circulated claiming the account showed recent logins from Israel. The same handle supposedly appeared on Rocket League.

Both profiles went dark almost immediately after the screenshots began circulating, and an archived page of the Fortnite stats was purportedly scrubbed as well — pouring gasoline on speculation that Epstein faked his death and is still alive, gaming from the Levant.

Maybe Jeffrey Epstein is still alive.

In the Epstein files, there is a receipt from YouTube where his username is littlestjeff1.

If you search this account on Fortnite Tracker, you can see there is an account with that name, and the Epstein files show he purchased V-Bucks.… pic.twitter.com/6oRK92whpl

— Pirat_Nation 🔴 (@Pirat_Nation) February 5, 2026

A duller but potentially more likely explanation: DOJ inadvertently exposed Epstein’s login credentials, and anonymous internet users — requiring no grander motive than garden-variety opportunism — helped themselves to a dead man’s Fortnite account.

The revelation that history’s most notorious sex trafficker was also, apparently, a gamer has furnished the internet with two weeks’ worth of material so far, and enthusiasm shows no signs of abating.

One detail makes the whole story even stranger. In August 2019, days after Epstein’s death, a Twitter user named Jules posted: “Not sure what his gamertag is but Jeffrey Epstein had an Xbox Live account.” The tweet sat largely unnoticed for over six years — until the Epstein files proved him right, and the post went viral.

The gaming industry has not commented. Kotick, who departed Activision Blizzard in 2023 after Microsoft’s $70 billion acquisition of the company, has not publicly addressed the emails.