{"id":230704,"date":"2026-04-01T20:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/230704\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T20:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:27:08","slug":"austin-texas-walk-of-shame-names-epstein-linked-elites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/230704\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin, Texas, \u2018Walk of Shame\u2019 names Epstein-linked elites"},"content":{"rendered":"

A “Walk of Shame” art installation calling out powerful figures associated with Jeffrey Epstein\u00a0has popped up on Austin’s Brazos Street \u2014 complete with QR codes that onlookers can scan to view the files linked to billionaire investors, elected officials and tech moguls who have been connected to Epstein through recently released files<\/a> from the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

Beginning in January, the Department of Justice unveiled 3.5 million documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act<\/a>, a law requiring the release of all unclassified records related to the investigation and prosecution of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in a prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.<\/p>\n

Austin’s walkway of stars appeared during SXSW in mid-March, the Austin-American Statesman reported<\/a>,\u00a0when an unidentified individual installed them\u00a0between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m. on Brazos Street’s sidewalk area.\u00a0“He was putting them down really fast, with a rolling thing,\u201d\u00a0Jeph Clark, a doorman at a Brazos Street business, told the publication.\u00a0\u201cJust one guy. Little victories, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

The art project, dubbed the “Jeffrey Epstein Walk of Shame,” featured 31 names in total \u2014 including President Donald Trump and multibillionaire tech mogul Elon Musk.\u00a0\u201cTrump\u2019s star \u2014 I just scanned it \u2014 was six pages long,\u201d Clark told the Statesman. By early Saturday evening, the report stated, Trump and Musk’s stars had been vandalized to obscure their names. Their corresponding\u00a0QR codes, however, remained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A similar art installation also appeared at Farragut Square<\/a> in Washington, D.C., although the identity of the artist who installed the interactive exhibit is still unknown.<\/p>\n

From music and entertainment to politics and government, the breadth of Epstein’s involvement in both the public and private sector is staggering. That influence extended deep into the nation’s most powerful and visible circles, and is certainly one that Texas did not escape.\u00a0Aside from Musk, several prominent figures in Texas have been identified as having ties to Epstein, including former University of Texas professor Thomas Hubbard<\/a>, former Baylor University president<\/a> Ken<\/a> Starr<\/a>, former White House media relations director Merrie Spaeth<\/a>, as well as Stanford-trained physician and former CBS News contributor\u00a0Peter\u00a0Attia<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A “Walk of Shame” art installation calling out powerful figures associated with Jeffrey Epstein\u00a0has popped up on Austin’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-230704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}