While his family is certainly enjoying life after the White House, Barack Obama spent nearly a decade in his two terms as president. That meant plenty of time for him to functionally be the most powerful man in the world. When someone has this much power and influence, it always leads to crazy rumors about that person and their family.
With that being said, which of the rumors about Barack Obama and his family are the craziest? We did our homework and picked out the wildest ones from throughout the years. If you’re ready for a rollercoaster ride of conspiracy theories, keep reading to discover the wildest rumors about Barack Obama and his family!
Questions about Michelle Obama’s gender
In a world where “fake news” is everywhere, it’s easy for gullible people to fall for almost anything. Making matters worse is when a publication tries to engage in some humorous satire only to find out that some people take everything way too seriously.
A great example of this is when a satirical website claimed in 2019 that Michelle Obama was trans and was born as a male named “Michael Obama.” This actually added momentum to a similarly spurious 2014 claim by Joan Rivers that Michelle was trans. There was never any evidence for this claim, but to this day, many still believe it to be true.
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The parentage of Malia and Sasha has been called into question
Remember when we said some people just can’t handle satire and assume it to be true? In 2017, there was a satirical article that included a joke about a man filing a lawsuit to claim that he was a sperm donor and effectively the biological dad of Malia and Sasha Obama.
As with the crazy “Michelle Obama is trans” claims, this satire built (knowingly or unknowingly) on some 2013-era rumors that Barack Obama is not actually the father of his two daughters. And once again, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that this is true. But that didn’t keep major right-wing figures like Alex Jones from passing the rumor on like it was some kind of biblical truth. To this day, it’s not that uncommon to see people posting photo comparisons of the girls with their dad and claiming that Barack Obama simply can’t be their biological father.
Endless citizenship rumors about Barack Obama
No article about Barack Obama rumors would be complete without acknowledging the insane “Birther” conspiracy theories surrounding the former president. These rumors began back in 2008 and were clearly designed to discourage people from voting for Obama. Interestingly, while these rumors were later shared by Donald Trump and other prominent conservatives, the initial rumors were spread by Hillary Clinton supporters who hoped that she would become the Democrat nominee for president that year instead of Obama.
What is this conspiracy all about, though? Basically, the theory claims that Obama couldn’t legally run for or serve as president because he was not born in America. The initial theory claims this was because he was born in Kenya and that his birth certificate (showing a Hawaii birth) was false, though the theory has taken on many new forms. Fortunately, this rumor seemed to die around 2016 after even Donald Trump (the theory’s biggest champion) admitted it was false.
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Fake news about Barack Obama’s religion
Barack Obama is a practicing Christian. However, both his father and stepfather were Muslim. Because of that (and because of his middle name, “Hussein”), rumors began in 2004 that Obama himself is Muslim. These rumors, of course, kicked into high gear in 2008 when Obama began his presidential campaign.
It didn’t take long for the rumor to get some additional details. For example, Obama spent some early years in Indonesia, and one version of this rumor claims that he received some kind of radical Muslim education while overseas. In reality, he attended a public school that was very secular and did not push any one set of religious or cultural beliefs.
The rumors got so bad that Obama had to frequently mention the fact that he has practiced Christianity at the same church for decades and was sworn into office on his family bible. At the time, there were strong rumors that “Muslim” Obama had been sworn in on a Quran.
Strange rumors about Barack Obama being gay
One of the strangest rumors about Barack Obama from 2008 is that he is secretly gay or possibly bisexual. Pretty much all of these rumors come from the fact that a man named Larry Sinclair claims that he and Obama began doing drugs and having sex together in 1999.
This led to a number of variant rumors, including ones that Obama regularly visited gay bathhouses. Unfortunately, Obama didn’t help this rumor go away once critics got hold of a love letter to a girlfriend in 1982 in which the future president claimed “I make love to men daily, but in the imagination. My mind is androgynous to a great extent and I hope to make it more so, until I can think of people, not women as opposed to men.”
There has never been anything concrete to substantiate this rumor, but Sinclair was still repeating his claims as recently as 2023. To those who buy such claims without evidence, it looks like this rumor won’t be going away anytime soon.