We’re doing this again! People are once again speculating about whether or not Barack Obama is having some kind of romantic relationship with Jennifer Aniston. Yes, that does sound completely bonkers. No, there is no real proof that Barack and Michelle Obama are splitting up or living separate lives. There are, however, a lot of people gossiping in public. Let’s break down why this rumor is firing back up five months after it first went public.
How did the rumors about Jennifer Aniston and Barack Obama start?
Last August, InTouch published an attention-grabbing cover with the headline “The Truth About Jen & Barack!” The cover claimed that Michelle Obama was “betrayed” and that Barack Obama and Aniston were “obsessed with each other.” Inside the print magazine — the story was not published online — it was revealed that the rumor came from the popular celebrity gossip podcast Who? Weekly.
“The goss is … Michelle and Barack are living separate lives, and Barack is fucking Jennifer Aniston,” InTouch reported host Lindsey Weber saying on a Patreon episode of the show. Weber clarified that while the rumor came from “reliable sources,” the whole thing “obviously could be made up,” but that didn’t stop InTouch from running with it.
Shortly after the InTouch cover, a 2014 satirical piece from the Economist resurfaced, in which the writer uses Obama having an affair with Aniston as a hypothetical example of what could happen if Americans viewed sex the way the French do. This has nothing to do with anything, but it was a weird coincidence. (In the piece, George W. Bush is married to Beyoncé … unfortunately that rumor hasn’t really kicked off yet.)
Have Barack Obama or Jennifer Aniston talked about the rumor?
She certainly has. In October, Aniston went on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and dispelled the rumor. When Kimmel held up a copy of the InTouch cover, the Friends star laughed it off. “Of all the calls you get from your publicist where you’re just like, Oh no, what’s it gonna be,” she said, “and then it’s that … I was not mad.”
Aniston said that the rumor was “absolutely untrue” and that she’s only met Obama one time. “I know Michelle more than him,” she told Kimmel.
As for Obama, he has said nothing about the whole situation.
Why is this coming up again now?
The rumor mill has started back up, and this time people are reading into Michelle’s absence at both Jimmy Carter’s funeral and Donald Trump’s inauguration. Despite him sharing a sweet message for her birthday, there are still people rumbling about the state of their marriage.
“Obama Arrives to D.C. Restaurant Alone on Inauguration Eve Amid Wild Rumors About Jennifer Aniston After Michelle No-Show,” reads a Daily Mail headline. In the past few days, conservative women have really taken to the rumor. Meghan McCain brought up talk of the Obamas splitting on her podcast, while Jessica Reed Kraus added fuel to the Aniston rumor on her wildly popular Substack. Just yesterday, Megyn Kelly read Kraus’s post verbatim on her YouTube show, which got over a million views in less than 24 hours.
If right-wing influencers peddling the rumor wasn’t reason enough to be skeptical, it’s worth reiterating that there is no evidence that any of this is true. Stay safe out there, gossip lovers.