Maybe the only thing more exhausting than sitting through President Trump’s entire nearly two-hour State of the Union message on Tuesday night is keeping up with the Epstein files, which unsurprisingly weren’t mentioned in the marathon speech.
Trump didn’t have to: The networks and social media were awash in accusations ahead of his entrance to the House of Representatives that Pam Bondi’s Justice Department redacted mentions of accusations against Trump involving a 14-year-girl. The grim look on Trump’s face and his family in the gallery — and the panicked smile plastered on Bondi’s face throughout the endless address — was all the mention required.
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It remains to be seen how those explosive investigatory interviews and the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) handling of the material will play out in the media ecosystem in the days and weeks ahead. But the media’s portrayal connects to a larger problem of misinformation generally on the internet, and the damage it does to the president may extend beyond whether the underage molestation accusations are true.
Another case in point: Conspiracy theorists are now claiming that the Epstein files prove Ellen DeGeneres is a “most prolific cannibal.”
“⛔️Thanks to the Epstein files, we now know that Ellen DeGeneres is the most prolific cannibal. Hollywood staying silent. 🤫 Now we understand why she left the United States‼️”
That’s a quote from one post that’s helped set the internet on fire in the latest Epstein/QAnon/Pizzagate conspiracy theory, with the former talk queen at the center.
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⛔️Thanks to the Epstein files, we now know that Ellen DeGeneres is the most prolific cannibal.
Hollywood staying silent. 🤫
Now we understand why she left the United States‼️ pic.twitter.com/QpE2cyImVo— Dr.Sam Youssef Ph.D.,M.Sc.,DPT. (@drhossamsamy65) February 16, 2026
The theory’s history goes back to a DOJ release of Epstein files in January, which contained mentions of both the comedian and “cannibalism”. The internet went to work and conflated the two, resulting in the wild charge.
The two, however, were not mentioned together, let alone in a way that described DeGeneres as a cannibal herself.
DeGeneres’ name came up in the files largely in news articles about other celebrities, or in tweets from her talk show that made their way into the files, according to Snopes, which investigated the “cannibalism” claim.
Among other mentions in the files, DeGeneres’ name came up in an Apple Newsletter about allegations of misconduct that led to ending her talk show. A publicist’s email mentioned a trip DeGeneres made to St. Barts in the Caribbean.
“Cannibal” or “cannibalism” are mentioned 52 times in the DOJ’s files, according to Snopes, some of them duplications. One is from an academic syllabus; another refers to a restaurant named “Cannibal”. None mention DeGeneres.
But hand “cannibal”, “St. Bart’s”, “misconduct”, and “Ellen DeGeneres” to conspiracy theorists on the internet and you get a blood-soaked weekend with the “most prolific cannibal” on Epstein Island.
DeGeneres’ previous “connection” to the QAnon Pizzagate conspiracy theory — which claimed that influential celebrities and politicos like Hillary Clinton were sacrificing children in a gay-owned Washington D.C. pizza restaurant basement in order to steal their life-extending “adrenochrome” — only increased the odds that the one-time talk show queen would be pulled into the conspiracy maelstrom.
And in an incidence of very bad timing, DeGeneres felt compelled earlier this month to speak out publicly about the murder of Renee Good at the hands of an ICE agent in January during Trump’s maximalist immigration crackdown in Minnesota, after maintaining a low media profile for months.
Like Trump, DeGeneres was once again in the media spotlight, and the internet’s conspiracy crosshairs.
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