The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers

Nickname for former US President Barack Obama that originates in the Bill Ayers 2008 presidential election controversy. Bill Ayers is a Chicago-based college professor who lived in the same neighborhood in Chicago as Obama and they were friendly with each other. Ayers was a 1960s radical who was a member of the militant leftist group the Weather Underground in his youth.

The fact that he and Obama were on friendly terms, although both men denied being friends, helped fuel right-wing conspiracy theories that Obama was a radical leftist like Ayers and that Ayers had mentored Obama and was guiding Obama to destroy the US from within his position of power. Ayers said that he got along well with Obama when they saw each other at local social events, but that Obama was not a radical, even though he wished that Obama was a radical and that he did not have any influence over Obama's ideology.

The term "The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers" is a play on words referencing the popular 90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air about a young black man who moves to the tony Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel-Air to live with wealthy relatives after getting in trouble in his inner-city neighborhood in West Philadelphia. In this play on words, Obama is the "fresh prince" of radical leftist Bill Ayers who they think is dangerous and now has access to power through Obama. Of course, none of these irrational fears, false claims and conspiracies came to fruition and Obama was a rather moderate president.