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John Oliver Has Debunked ‘The Single Dumbest Story Involving A Young Michael Jordan That I Have Ever Heard’

John Oliver went to town on a viral story bouncing around the Philippines that claims former president Ferdinand Marcos once met and fed a young Michael Jordan in North Carolina. In the tall tale that apparently started as a joke before becoming a propaganda tool (Marcos oversaw a brutal and corrupt regime), the late president came across a skinny, malnourished young boy in a park. Marcos gave the boy a box of Philippine bread called Nutribun and told the boy, “Bring this with you child, someday you will grow up to be someone important.” In a Paul Harvey-esque twist, that child grew up to be Michael Jordan.

“That is the single dumbest story involving a young Michael Jordan I have ever heard, and I have seen Space Jam,” Oliver said before debunking the viral story during Sunday night’s episode of Last Week Tonight. Via Yahoo!:

“To be clear, in this story, President Marcos was walking through a park holding bread, specifically Nutribun, a bread mainly sold in the Philippines, meaning Marcos flew to the United States with Nutribun because he was like, ‘What if we get to Wilmington, North Carolina, my favorite holiday destination, and they don’t have any bread there?’” Oliver said. “Then he went to the park and passed, like, 10 other kids, thinking, ‘None of you are gonna grow up to be important so you’re not getting any of my park bread.’ Then he saw Michael Jordan and was like, ‘Wait, I’m pretty sure that you are gonna be important. So here, have this bread that I brought with me from the other side of the world.’”

Oliver then went to town on why the heck the former Philippines president would be in Jordan’s hometown for Christmas 1969. “Because if you’re a billionaire from the other side of the world and you want to celebrate the holidays in America, there’s only one place that you’re going, and that’s Wilmington, North Carolina,” the late night host said with a laugh.

(Via Yahoo!)