Nikki Haley has made it clear that she is not opposed to crafting her own personal version of reality. Hell, if she can reframe the entire history of the Civil War to suit her liking, surely she wouldn’t see a problem with a little thing like reshaping the identity of her husband.
“You may be wondering how ‘Bill’ became South Carolina First Gentleman Michael Haley,” Haley wrote in a recently resurfaced anecdote from her 2012 autobiography Can’t Is Not an Option: My American Story. And I wasn’t, really—I don’t think many people were. But she’s going to tell us anyway.
The way Haley describes it in what she clearly thinks is a fun little anecdote and not a bizarre and insulting overstep of personal boundaries, she thought her then-boyfriend just didn’t “look like a Bill,” despite that being his name. So she took it upon herself to rename him, deciding that he would henceforth be known by his middle name, Michael.
“From that point on, I started calling him Michael, and all my friends did the same. When he transferred to Clemson his sophomore year, my friends became his friends, and before we knew it, he was universally known as Michael,” Haley wrote, adding, “He looks like a Michael.”
We obviously don’t know what Bill/Michael’s reaction was to this move from his girlfriend. Maybe he was fine with being treated like a rehomed pet, maybe he was weirded out. The decision definitely stuck, though, to the point that even his Wikipedia page names him as Michael.
People are quick to label powerful women as “controlling,” “overbearing,” and “unlikeable.” It’s a totally unfair double standard rooted in straightforward misogyny. Here, though, I’m at a loss trying to figure out what Haley’s intention was with this story other than to embrace her blatantly controlling nature and frame it as some kind of cute #girlboss quirk. Not only did she rename her husband but she chose to include it in her own memoir. She clearly thought she came off looking good in that story.
Nikki Haley has crafted an image as a more moderate, reasonable option in the field of GOP presidential candidates. But that image only really fits when standing next to brazen gremlins like Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy.
In addition to being anti-abortion, anti-union, anti-trans, and generally out-of-touch with American voters, stories like this are a good reminder that Nikki Haley is, at the end of the day, a deeply weird person.
(featured image: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
