Michelle Obama’s ex-boyfriend David Upchurch has come forward to reveal that she is actually a man named Michael Robinson and only became ‘Michelle’ after meeting Barack Obama.
False. Mr Upchurch has always described Mrs Obama as female.
Claims that the former US First Lady, Michelle Obama, is a man, are recirculating on social media, with one post on X, formerly Twitter, viewed more than 6.9 million times.
Posts have also been shared to Facebook, claiming her “ex-boyfriend David Upchurch has come forward to reveal that ‘she’ is actually a man named Michael Robinson and only became ‘Michelle’ after meeting Barack Obama and having prospects of becoming First Lady”.
But there is absolutely no evidence for this claim, which appears to be part of a series of baseless theories that have been circulating doubting Mrs Obama’s gender.
Although some claims seem really obviously false, we still fact check them because it may not be clear to everyone that it is untrue, particularly more casual internet users. We’ve written about this in more detail on our blog.
The picture being shared alongside these claims shows Mrs Obama at her high school prom with Mr Upchurch. Mr Upchurch has always described Mrs Obama as female when recounting his experience growing up with her in interviews and we can find no evidence that he has ever described her as a man. Mrs Obama has also posted photos of herself as a young girl ahead of the publication of her books Becoming and The Light We Carry.
The false claim that Mr Upchurch ‘revealed’ Mrs Obama is actually a man appears to come from a January article in The People’s Voice headlined: “Michelle Obama’s Ex-Boyfriend Confirms ‘She Is Actually a Man Named Michael Robinson’”.
The article also cites “official documents obtained from the Illinois State Board of Elections” which claim to show “Michelle Obama was officially registered to vote as a man from 1994 until 2008”. This false claim has been debunked by other fact checkers.
The People’s Voice website (formerly News Punch) has made several other false claims, which Full Fact and other fact checking organisations have written about previously.
It’s important to consider whether a post you are sharing is genuine before amplifying it on social media. Read our toolkit to help you verify this type of content for yourself.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because Michelle Obama’s ex-boyfriend never said she ‘is actually a man named Michael Robinson’.
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