Were Harris' Earrings Secret Earpieces To Help Her During Debate?

Claim:

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris wore wireless earphones embedded in her earrings during the Sept. 10, 2024, debate with former U.S. President Donald Trump to help her answer questions.

Rating:

Unfounded

About this rating

Context

Supporters of the claim believed the technology to be NOVA H1 Audio earrings, which are wireless earpieces embedded in earrings. However, there were distinct physical differences between that product and the earrings Harris wore, and there was no evidence of her wearing a different brand of technology with a similar function.

After the Sept. 10, 2024, debate between U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and former U.S. President Donald Trump, conspiratorial rumors surfaced claiming she secretly wore wireless earphones embedded in her earrings to receive off-stage guidance during the event. 

Supporters of the conspiracy theory shared photographs of Harris on stage, describing her earrings as visually similar to a product that indeed feeds audio to the wearer, called NOVA H1 Audio earrings.

(X user @The_Trump_Train)

While the alleged NOVA H1 Audio earrings are an actual product seen at trade shows in 2023, and there are some physical similarities between them and Harris' earrings, there are also distinct visual differences between the audio equipment and Harris' earrings that we outline below. Furthermore, had she blatantly worn wireless earpieces — violating rules of the debate prohibiting candidates from bringing any props or items on stage — mainstream news outlets would have covered the alleged offense. That had not happened. For those reasons, we rated this claim "Unfounded."

We reached out to Harris' team asking for the exact brand and design of the earrings she wore and for its response to the conspiracy theory. We also reached out to the company behind the audio earrings for its response to the claim that the vice president supposedly wore its technology. We will update this report if they respond.

As of this writing, there didn't appear to be a way to purchase the NOVA H1 Audio earrings, though the company's website had a contact form. According to a Kickstarter campaign for the earrings that was last updated in May 2023: 

[They] are the first clip-on earphones on the planet. These earrings are fully packed with the latest technology embedded in real pearls to provide you with music, phone calls and digital assistants all day long. Like conventional earrings, the NOVA H1 are placed on the earlobes and project the sound from inside the pearl straight into your ear canal.

An update posted May 31, 2023, titled "Company News" was readable only by people who had contributed to the Kickstarter campaign, and comments by supporters indicated that the company had announced its bankruptcy.

(X user @LauraLoomer)

Close-up photographs of Harris' earrings on the debate stage can be seen via Getty Images. Those photos show earrings with a pearl and two prongs circling around the front of Harris' earlobe to the back. 

(SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, the clip-on NOVA audio earrings can be seen on the company's official Instagram account and website. Those photos show the devices clipped to the outside of users' ear lobes. Additionally, according to the below-displayed photograph of a wearer, the apparent prongs on the lower half of the lobe seemed to be separate, hoop-style earrings — each with their own piercing hole. (The image below appeared in a January 2023 article in which writer Kate Kozuch described her experience with the NOVA H1 earrings.)

(Kate Kozuch/Tom's Guide)

Following the debate, the company updated its website for the first time in months, apparently to capitalize on the newfound interest in the earrings. The site promised a "Special Edition for Presidential Debates" would soon be available and said company officials would speak only with late-night talk-show host Jimmy Fallon about its product.

What earrings did Harris actually wear? While there's no way to know for sure without evidence from Harris' team, a fashion site "What Kamala Wore" run by journalist Susan E. Kelley claims she wore Tiffany HardWear pearl earrings. Indeed, those earrings on Tiffany's site look similar to the earrings Harris wore on the debate stage. According to Kelley, Harris has supposedly worn those earrings before. 

This was not the first time conspiracy theorists accused a presidential candidate of being "coached" from off-stage during a debate. Following the first presidential debate of the 2016 election, we fact-checked the false claim that Hillary Clinton had a teleprompter hidden on her lectern. Also, in 2020, we addressed unfounded claims that Joe Biden was planning to wear an earpiece for a debate.