Did former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines turn down a $3 million partnership with Nike? No, that's not true: This claim comes from a satirical website that has a history of fabricating content surrounding popular political topics and figures. The website has a disclaimer that contains the line, "Everything on this website is fiction." Lead Stories could not find evidence to substantiate this claim on Google News.
The claim appeared in an article (archived here) where it was published by The Dunning-Kruger Times on May 24, 2023, under the title "Riley Gaines Turns Down $3 Million Partnership With Nike: 'I'm Not Saving Your Woke Brand.'" It opened:
Riley Gaines says she could really use the money but there's no she's going to take it from Nike.
This is what the article looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: The Dunning-Kruger Times screenshot taken on Thu Aug 31 14:50:25 2023 UTC)
Lead Stories did not find any evidence that this claim was legitimate. Google News' index of thousands of credible news sources did not yield a relevant result when we searched the phrase, "Riley Gaines turns down $3 million partnership with Nike."
The article also claims that Gaines spoke about turning down this partnership on comedian Joe Rogan's podcast. Lead Stories could not find any evidence of this podcast episode on Google News.
We have reached out to Nike for comment and we will update this story when we receive one.
On The Dunning-Kruger Times website is an About Us section that has the line, "Everything on this website is fiction."
The Dunning-Kruger Times
The Dunning-Kruger Times is a satirical website with an about page (archived here) that has following disclaimer:
About Us
Dunning-Kruger-Times.com is a subsidiary of the 'America's Last Line of Defense' network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery, or as Snopes called it before they lost their war on satire: Junk News
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with 'comedy':
sat·ire ˈsaˌtī(ə)r noun: The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
The website is named after the Dunning-Kruger effect, a term from a psychology experiment that describes the phenomenon of being ignorant of one's own ignorance. (That experiment has been disputed by a math professor.)
It is run by self-described liberal troll Christopher Blair.
Other Lead Stories articles on claims involving Riley Gaines can be found here. Other Lead Stories articles on claims related to Nike can be found here.
Other Lead Stories articles on claims in The Dunning-Kruger Times can be found here.
