Kumail Nanjiani responds to viral rumor of affair with Michelle Obama

Kumail Nanjiani has addressed one of the stranger rumours to circulate about him in recent years: that he was having an affair with Michelle Obama, a claim he says reached his wife before it reached him.

Speaking on the So True podcast, hosted by Caleb Hearon, the Marvel actor said he was baffled by how widely the rumour spread despite one basic problem: he has never met the former First Lady.




“I was so excited!” Nanjiani said. “My friend, our mutual friend pulled Emily aside and was like, ‘Hey, so I heard that Kumail and Michelle Obama are like doing it.’ And she was like, she wasn’t even upset, but multiple people brought it up to me.”

Nanjiani stressed the obvious point again: “I have never met Michelle Obama.”



The rumour, he explained, even made its way to his wife, writer and producer Emily V. Gordon, whom he has been married to since 2007. The couple’s relationship famously inspired The Big Sick, the Oscar-nominated film based on their early years together.

Hearon used the moment to raise another piece of internet folklore, mentioning a long-running claim that Barack Obama was involved with Jennifer Aniston.

“But what I’m saying is, my friend Kumail, you’re up there with Jen Aniston in terms of affair rumours,” Hearon said.

Nanjiani responded with a joke, suggesting that in both imagined scenarios the Obamas were “slumming it”, before clarifying that he meant “no shade to Jen”.

The actor, best known in recent years for playing Kingo in Marvel’s Eternals, said he could only laugh at how casually the rumour was repeated, even when it involved people who had never been in the same room.

The episode added another entry to the growing list of viral celebrity rumours that spread without evidence, and, in this case, without even a meeting to point to.