According to a controversial new biography about the Obamas, ‘The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House,’ author Edward Klein claims the president and his wife, Michelle, nearly divorced over a decade ago — but is it true?

Klein, whose previous works include books about Hillary Clinton and the Kennedy family, says he interviewed nearly 200 people before writing the unauthorized Obama biography. In it, Klein writes that in 2000, Michelle advised Barack not to run against Democratic congressman incumbent Bobby Rush for a Chicago House of Representatives.

Barack ran against Rush anyway and lost — badly.

“During the dark days that followed his defeat, he turned to Michelle for comfort. But she was in no mood for sympathy,” Klein reportedly writes, saying that Michelle was so infuriated that he hadn’t listened to her warnings and “put his family in a precarious financial position” that she “actually had divorce papers drawn up.”

But presidential spokesperson Eric Schultz says not a word of the account is true. On Monday, Schultz said, “Ed Klein has a proven history of reckless fabrication in order to sell books. Nobody in their right mind would believe the nonsense in this one.”

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