Michelle Obama, the wife of former U.S. President Barack Obama, has been the target of rumormongering since her husband took office in 2009.
A lawyer, like the ex-president, she placed her Illinois law license on inactive status in the 1990s to pursue a career in community organizing and at the University of Chicago and University of Chicago Hospitals. In 2008, she stopped working as Barack Obama, then a U.S. senator, ran for the presidency and was elected.
As Michelle Obama became more prominent, criticism of her increased. For example, in 2008, Fox News columnist Cal Thomas called her an "angry Black woman." From then, many claims with varying degrees of veracity began to circulate about her, including that she once called disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein a good friend and that she receives a monthly payment of $122,000 from the U.S. General Services Adminstration.
Here are 14 rumors we have unpacked over the years:
