A rumor that the younger daughter of former U.S. President Barack Obama, Sasha Obama, said her father was gay and her mother, Michelle Obama, was a trans woman spread in May 2026.
For example, an X user shared the rumor (archived) on May 21, 2026, purporting to quote Sasha Obama as saying "We have always known that we have two dads. The First Lady' thing was a fraud meant to cover up my father Barack's sexual orientation and my father Mike's biological gender." (People spreading the false claim that Michelle Obama is trans often refer to her as "Mike.")
The claims about Barack and Michelle Obama weren't new. Snopes has debunked rumors of the former president's alleged homosexuality since at least 2015, and his wife's gender identity since at least 2023. However, some users seemed to interpret the rumor about Sasha Obama as true, and Snopes readers contacted us to investigate its legitimacy.
The post about Sasha Obama cited a purported New York Times story as making these revelations. A search on the Times site turned up no such article. To further investigate the rumor's legitimacy, we also used search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo. If Sasha Obama had said such things about her parents, reputable news outlets, such as The Associated Press or Reuters, would have reported on it, and our searches would have uncovered such evidence.
That was not the case. We did not find any credible reporting about Sasha Obama saying her father is gay and her mother is trans.
Meanwhile, a Facebook user who posted the story about Sasha Obama "exposing" her parents identified himself as a "comedian." Because of this, we've determined the story originated as satire.
Jonathan Gregory shared the rumor on May 21 (archived). The bio on his page read "Digital Content Creator for the Trump Administration," with the tag "comedian" underneath:
(Image courtesy of Jonathan Gregory, via Facebook)
He shared the same claim in video format less than an hour before the post above.
We reached out to Gregory for his response to the fact he did not include in the post about Sasha Obama any indication that the story was satirical and that some people mistook it as real news. We will update this story if we receive a response.
We also identified a May 20 post on X making the same claim (archived). The account had a history of sharing false, sensational stories, which were often the same stories Gregory shared on Facebook. We contacted the user and we will update this report should he reply.
We also asked Gregory whether he had taken that false rumor from another internet user, whether he worked with the X user who first posted the story or whether he is also behind the X account that first shared the story.
Snopes has previously debunked similar pieces of media from Gregory targeting Barack Obama. In May 2026, we alerted readers to a fake story Gregory posted in which he claimed former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr said he regretted not prosecuting Obama.
As the definition of satire can change depending on who uses the term, we apply "originated as satire" or "labeled satire" ratings based on creators' description of their work. You decide if you agree.