The origin of the Malia Obama photo which surfaced on Instagram Sunday is now reportedly probed by the White House. The Malia Obama photo looks authentic enough, but the White House is treating it only as a potential photo of President Obama's daughter.
The Malia Obama photo was posted on the Instagram page of a rap group, now a mystery gripping the nation in and out of social media, as well as the Secret Service.
The Malia Obama photo shows someone who appeared to be the 16-year-old sporting a white shirt with a Pro Era logo in green, red and black lettering. Pro Era is Joey Bada$'s rap crew, reports Gawker.
A photo posted by Pro Era (@proera47) on Jan 5, 2015 at 6:12am PST
Of course the snapshot went viral quickly after the Brooklyn-based hip-hop collective showcased it to the world to advertise its online store.
Rapper Joey Bada$'s representative told Gawker that the New York-based rap group received the Malia Obama photo from a "mutual friend of Malia and the pro era member," according to Fox News. However, White House officials aren't buying the entire story.
While the authenticity of the Instagram picture has not been verified, Fox News reports that government officials are looking into how the Malia Obama photo landed on the Internet, just to make sure.
First Lady Michelle Obama has done her best to keep her daughters out of the social media spotlight and she has been very vocal about this.
In 2013, she told Barbara Walters that Malia could only use Facebook, while Sasha was banned from social media altogether. Michelle has been strict about this in an effort to protect the girls from the public eye, according to Essence.
Because of this, many are still wondering how the Malia Obama photo surfaced, and whether it really is of Malia.
The Malia Obama photo was posted by Pro Era with a link to the group's web shop. According to earlier reports, the T-shirt was on-sale for $40.
An incident similar to this Malia Obama photo occurred in 2009, weeks after Obama became president. Ty Inc., a company based in Obama's home state of Illinois named a pair of its popular Beanie Babies toys after the presidential sisters. They were forced to rename the toys after Michelle Obama complained about the inappropriateness of using her daughters' names.
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