Fake News: Obama Divorce Rumor NOT Confirmed

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

Fake news website The Resistance: The Last Line of Defence once again posted a hoax article, this time it is titled: "BREAKING: Obama Divorce Rumor CONFIRMED-Here's What We Know". The article opens:

Late last week, a rumor began circulating in Washington social circles that there was trouble in paradise for Barack and Michelle Obama. While there was no confirmation, it was being tossed around that it was Barack looking to dump Michelle. This morning, a filing in the District Court of Cook County, Illinois confirmed that the couple is seeking divorce and that Barack is, in fact, the plaintiff.

According to county docket D4610968L86, Barack Hussein Obama seeks dissolution of marriage from Michelle Obama on grounds of infidelity and irreconcilable differences. The infidelity, according to the Obama's longtime housekeeper, Analita Consuelo Gonsales, isn't recent but rather the revelation through a recent DNA test that Obama isn't the biological father of Sasha or Malia.

Gonsales said that it wasn't really a surprise, because during an argument in 2003 Barack admitted to Michelle that he had faked all of his orgasms. Michelle, in turn, admitted that she had an affair with a biolab and that the children were actually the product of advanced genetic engineering. Apparently, Malia is secretly one of the most talented dulcimer musicians in the world and Sasha's IQ is so high she's a single lab accident away from being a supervillain and taking over the world.

Of course the article is not true, just like all the other articles on the site. There is no "county docket D4610968L86" and as far as we know Barack and Michelle are doing fine.

How do we know this? Because we read the fine print on the website:

DISCLAIMER: The Resistance may include information from sources that may or may not be reliable and facts that don't necessarily exist. All articles should be considered satirical and any and all quotes attributed to actual people complete and total baloney. Pictures that represent actual people should be considered altered and not in any way real.

Also the byline on the article actually says "You're An Idiot", they don't even try to hide what they think of their readers:

idiot.jpg

It seems there are plenty of idiots around on the internet sharing the story as you can see in the Trendolizer graph at the end of this article. Don't be one: if you notice anyone spreading the rumor around you can help by pointing them to this article here because nobody likes being an idiot.

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

About Us

International Fact-Checking Organization Meta Third-Party Fact Checker

Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.

Lead Stories is a:


@leadstories

Subscribe to our newsletter

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Lead Stories LLC:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

Most Read

Most Recent

Share your opinion