Did Michelle Obama wear a gold necklace with the letters "MIKE" in 2020? No, that's not true: The former first lady's gold necklace had the four letters "VOTE" on it at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Publicly available images of Obama wearing the VOTE necklace are easily found on the internet. Multiple news outlets covered the necklace she wore and how it became a bestseller.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on Facebook on July 30, 2024. The caption said:
That awkward moment when Michelle's necklace from the 2020 DNC goes viral
Could it be AI?🤔
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Aug 1 19:36:06 2024 UTC)
A Google search using keywords (archived here) showed multiple news stories and images of Michelle Obama wearing the "VOTE" jewelry.
The image of Obama wearing the necklace in 2020 was published by The New York Times (archived here) with the photo credited to the "Democratic National Convention, via The Associated Press":
(Source: New York Times screenshot taken on Thu Aug 1 19:40:12 2024 UTC)
The necklace became a bestseller, as Glamour reported (archived here).
The post's implication refers to a conspiracy that Michelle Obama is not a woman. This conspiracy is detailed on the Know Your Meme website (archived here) reports that the origins date back as far as 2013. Included in the Know Your Meme summary is a different piece of footage from a 2011 ceremony posted on YouTube on September 14, 2016, titled, "Obama calls Michelle (Michael)," (archived here) which Lead Stories debunked here.
Lead Stories has debunked several variations of this trope. These include edited images (here, here and here), baseless rumors with falsified details (here, here and here), and satirical trolling (here and here).
