Rhea Ripley has addressed a viral AI-generated story that falsely claimed she had landed a huge endorsement deal with basketball icon Michael Jordan, and while she quickly shut it down, she admitted she would not have minded if it were true.

During a recent interview with Complex, Ripley was shown the fabricated post, which not only pushed the false claim but also included made-up quotes that managed to fool plenty of fans online.

“Another thing, we’re in the era, unfortunately, of fake news and AI. There was, I was doing research, and a post comes up. I want to show you, just so you see it, and then I’m going to read it to you, okay? You and Michael Jordan. ‘Breaking: basketball legend Michael Jordan has just announced a massive million endorsement deal with young WWE star Rhea Ripley.’ It’s like this whole thing, they even gave a fake quote. It’s obviously fake.”

Despite recognizing immediately that the story was not legitimate, Ripley could not help but react to the scale of what was being claimed.

“I mean, I wish it wasn’t.”

The situation became even more bizarre when it was pointed out that many people in the comments had taken the story at face value, with some even saying they would buy Jordans for the first time because of her supposed involvement.

“But the interesting thing is there’s so many comments on that Facebook post like, ‘Oh man, I’m going to finally buy my first pair of Jordans,’ and things like that.”

Ripley found that reaction especially surreal, considering how globally established the brand already is.

“Dude, that’s wild that people were commenting that. Like, Jordans is a massive brand, they’ve been around for so long, and they have so many different styles. To say that it might be the first pair you buy because it’s a ‘Mommy Ripley’ pair is insane.”

Rather than dismissing the idea entirely, she even used the moment to jokingly call out Jordan himself, hinting that she would be open to turning fiction into reality.

“So… Michael Jordan, come on, see, come through.”

The conversation then shifted toward real-world opportunities, with Ripley revealing she would actually be more interested in working with a different brand altogether.

“Yeah, I mean, I’d love to do a Vans deal for sure, since they are the shoe that I wear every single day. I would love to do a Vans deal.”

She also shared that she previously attempted to make that collaboration happen early in her WWE run, but never heard back.

“And I remember when I first started in WWE, my name started getting a little bit bigger, and I messaged them ages ago. They never got back to me. Yeah, I slid into their DMs and they didn’t respond.”