In an era where fake news is rampant, it’s easy to suspect that a newly surfaced photograph of Stephen Hawking lounging between two bikini-clad women, each enjoying a tropical cocktail, might be a digitally manipulated image.

However, this image is genuine. It captures Hawking in a setting that any self-proclaimed playboy would likely admire.

Uncovered in the Epstein files, this photo has emerged without any unsettling implications or connections between the two men, a fact that will be clarified shortly.

Considering Hawking’s life, largely consumed by complex equations, scientific conferences, and his battle with a rare motor neurone disease for over five decades, the image seems quite out of place.

Yet, beyond the public facade of the renowned professor, who famously expanded on Einstein’s gravitational theories in his seminal work, “A Brief History of Time,” was a man who appreciated the company of beautiful women.

As one close friend and colleague famously observed, Hawking may have had “supernatural gifts” to offset his physical challenges, but he was also “a real human being… with normal human weaknesses.”

His cruel muscle-wasting condition might have confined him to a wheelchair and left him reliant on a voice synthesiser and round-the-clock medical care, but in the decade or so before his death in 2018 aged 76, he was a regular at Stringfellows lapdancing establishment in London’s West End (with his nurses in tow) and frequented a Californian sex club when he was 70, no less.

Hawking was also fond, in his dotage, of the Tiger Tiger venue on Haymarket, near Leicester Square, which was famous for ‘trashy nights out’ in the Noughties. He was once spotted ‘dancing’ there in the middle of the discotheque floor.

None of this is meant as a criticism of Britain’s most renowned astrophysicist, only that it is a side of his character most people will be surprised to learn about. The ‘revelations’ will probably even raise a wry smile among ordinary people up and down the country; that was certainly the tone of many social media posts following the emergence of this week’s snap. 

Perhaps it is understandable that a man so cruelly trapped in a ruined body would seek such escapism wherever he could.

It was certainly the attitude of Professor Hawking’s mother who, in a BBC interview to celebrate her son’s 60th birthday in 2002, jokingly admitted: ‘He liked parties. He liked pretty girls, only pretty ones. He liked adventure and he did, to some extent, like work.’

At the gathering to celebrate his big day, in fact, a Marilyn Monroe impersonator treated him to a breathless rendition of ‘I Wanna Be Loved By You’ while can-can girls draped themselves over his chair. 

He had a poster of Monroe on his bathroom door (the one where a gust of wind from a subway vent lifts up her white cocktail dress).

In case anyone is wondering, it is perhaps important to point out that, despite a widely held misconception, MND does not directly affect libido or sexual function. 

Hawking had two wives, three children and an affair with one of his nursing team 40 years his junior which nearly led to a third marriage.

So what precisely were the circumstances surrounding the photograph of Hawking with the two bikini-clad women released by the US Department of Justice?

It was reported to have been taken during a science symposium sponsored by Jeffrey Epstein – who set up his own foundation to fund ‘cutting-edge science around the world’ – on St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands in 2006.

In fact, as this newspaper revealed yesterday, it was actually taken at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Orlando, Florida (in around 2008, it is believed) and the two women were his full-time carers, Monica Guy and Nicola O’Brien.

A representative of the Hawking family estate confirmed that the women were his long-term carers, adding that ‘any insinuation of inappropriate conduct on his part is wrong and far-fetched in the extreme’.

The picture of a beaming Hawking accompanied an article by Ms Guy, now a PR executive, on a website for the hospitality industry praising the provision of wheelchair access in US hotels (like the Ritz-Carlton) based on her experience of travelling with Professor Hawking.

Ms Guy wrote of her travels: ‘The USA leads the way in terms of accessible hotels. That’s the conclusion I’ve come to after several years spent travelling around with Stephen Hawking, the well-known disabled scientist.

‘We’ve stayed in top and not-so-top hotels in cities all over the world. In the US it is considered absolutely normal to be disabled, and the right of a disabled person to access the same hotel facilities as everyone else is uncontested.’

She conceded that because of his celebrity status, Professor Hawking was often offered the best hotels by his hosts, and his name ‘opens doors’.

Exactly why or how this particular photo ended up in the Epstein files remains unexplained.

We do know, though, that Hawking was among 24 eminent scientists who did attend that Epstein-sponsored conference in St Thomas, where he gave a lecture on quantum cosmology.

Another scientist who was there was Phillip Peebles, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2019.

‘I did not know Epstein had given financial support for this conference and if I had known it would have meant nothing to me because I did not know his name or reputation,’ Peebles told the Daily Mail in an email from Princeton University, New Jersey, where he is now Professor Emeritus of Science. 

However, he added: ‘The only curious thing I remember about the conference was the unexplained presence of several nicely dressed young women during a coffee break. 

‘They just stood, and maybe listened. I wondered why they were there, forgot about it, and then recalled it when the Epstein scandal was advertised.’

The distinguished party also visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little St James, which is near St Thomas.

Pictures later emerged of Hawking enjoying a barbecue on Little St James, and a seabed tour in a specially adapted submarine because he had never been underwater before. 

Five months later Epstein was charged for the first time with soliciting prostitution. 

The innocent photograph of Hawking with his carers was one of a number of times he was referenced in the millions of documents released by the US authorities. 

Being mentioned does not amount to an accusation of criminal activity and there has never been any suggestion that Hawking did anything wrong.

But the fact he was widely known to have visited Little St James with his colleagues during that science symposium was enough to spark scurrilous and unfounded rumours, because it is the 78-acre retreat which subsequently became known as Epstein’s ‘Paedo Island’ or ‘Island of Sin’ where the former Prince Andrew, among others, is alleged to have slept with a woman trafficked there on a private plane by the financier.

One such rumour is addressed by Epstein in an email to a friend. ‘I kid you not,’ he wrote, ‘the local papers are suggesting that Steven [sic] Hawking had sex with a girl on the island.’

The friend, a fellow billionaire, replied: ‘If it were true you’d receive the Nobel Prize for science.’ 

The truth nevertheless is that Hawking’s private life bears little resemblance to the stereotypical Cambridge don who spent much of his career in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. 

His first wife was university sweetheart Jane Wilde, as she was, a language student with whom he had three children.

Their relationship and her struggle to balance his slowly progressing illness and rising fame was the subject of the acclaimed film, The Theory of Everything.

‘The truth was, there were four partners in our marriage,’ she said in a subsequent interview. 

‘Stephen and me, motor neurone disease and physics. If you took out motor neurone disease, you are still left with physics.

‘Mrs Einstein, you know, cited physics as a difference for her divorce.’

She eventually divorced him (in 1995) – describing how husband and wife had become ‘master’ and ‘slave’ – and later married the choirmaster and organist at the church where she sang.

Her husband did not waste any time finding a replacement.

In the same year, he married Elaine Mason, one of his nurses, who had red hair, liked to skateboard and ‘definitely knew how to flirt’, to quote from the book Stephen Hawking: A Memoir of Friendship and Physics by his old friend Leonard Mlodinow.

The marriage lasted 11 ‘passionate and tempestuous’ years and was dogged by accusations that she mentally and physically abused Hawking, who denied the allegations and refused to cooperate with the police. 

Afterwards, he fell for another of his carers, Diana King, who was 39 years his junior. They got engaged and even picked out a ring but fearing a third marriage would cause tension with his children, Hawking backed out.

By then in his 60s, he found a new lease of life.

One of his favourite haunts was Stringfellows. He caused a stir when, accompanied by his

assistant and two nurses, he turned up to celebrate his daughter’s engagement.

Peter Stringfellow, the late flamboyant owner, recalled: ‘I went and introduced myself and said, “Mr Hawking, it’s an honour to meet you. If you could spare me a minute or two, I’d love to chat to you about the Universe.” 

Then I paused for a bit and joked, “Or would you rather look at the girls?” There was silence for a moment, and then he answered, “The girls”.’

His favourite stripper, he said, was called ‘Tiger’, adding: ‘Stephen loved the girls and the girls all loved him.’

American celebrity news and gossip website Radar Online would later report that Hawking had been spotted several times inside a Southern California swinger’s club.

‘He arrives with an entourage of nurses and assistants,’ a source told the website. 

‘Last time I saw him he was in the back “play area” laying on a bed fully clothed with two naked women gyrating all over him.’

Hawking was more than happy, apparently, to have his picture taken with people in the club ‘as long as it was in a neutral area’.

Cambridge University said at the time (in 2012) that the report was ‘greatly exaggerated’, saying the professor had only visited the establishment ‘once a few years ago with friends while on a visit to California’.

Stephen Hawking could also knock back the drinks.

Ex-England cricket star Freddie Flintoff – famous for his own alcohol-related antics – once told how he got into a lengthy tequila session with him at a gathering in comic Jimmy Carr’s kitchen. 

‘We did five or six shots and he was loving it,’ Flintoff said. ‘His carer kept giving him another one. I hope I have a carer like that one day!’

There is perhaps one final thing to add about the incorrigible professor.

Stephen Hawking was only able to speak through a synthetic voice machine which, he decided, should definitely not be in an English accent.

The one he chose had a Scandinavian twang – because, he said, it played better ‘with women’.

• Additional reporting: Tim Stewart and Mark Branagan