Fact Check: Did Patriots’ Super Bowl QB Drake Maye Really Refuse to Wear LGBTQ Pride Armband?

Drake Maye, understandably, has the spotlight firmly on him ahead of Super Bowl LX. Many landmarks await him, including emulating Tom Brady, becoming the first quarterback since the GOAT in 2001 to win a Super Bowl in his first career postseason with the New England Patriots. As on-field pressure mounts, certain off-field developments have also placed the young QB under scrutiny.

Over the past two days, posts alleging Maye’s lack of acknowledgment toward the LGBTQ community have spread rapidly across X. It has triggered confusion and backlash in equal measure.

Claim: Drake Maye has allegedly refused to wear an LGBTQ Pride armband for the Super Bowl game. He allegedly said, “No one has the right to force me to betray my faith.” The wording and the whole allegation have given the impression that the Patriots quarterback is taking a public stand against what was portrayed as a league initiative during Super Bowl week.

Source of the Claim: The allegation originated from an X user named Pamela Hensley, who posted it without citing any source or verified interview. Despite the lack of sourcing, the post went viral, amassing over 19,000 likes, 1.1 million views, and over 1,400 reposts in a short span.

The virality of the post led many to assume that it is legitimate.

Verdict: The post alleging that Drake Maye refused to wear an LGBTQ Pride armband for the Super Bowl game is false.

In fact, X’s Community Notes quickly flagged the post, stating: “Drake Maye did not refuse to wear an LGBTQ pride armband or make the quoted statement; the NFL does not require players to wear such armbands, and the claim is part of a debunked spam campaign using fake quotes.”

Patriots QB Drake May refused to wear an LGBTQ pride armband. He said, “no one has the right to force me to betray my Faith.”

Welp, now I know who I will be rooting for in this year’s Super Bowl.

— Pamela Hensley (@PamelaHensley22) February 8, 2026

Grok, X’s AI-powered assistant, also scrutinized the post and the allegation. Its conclusion read: “The reported quote from Drake Maye is: ‘no one has the right to force me to betray my Faith.’ However, after checking multiple sources, I couldn’t find verified confirmation of this statement or the incident. It appears to be circulating on social media without backing from major [outlets].”

Additionally, no credible journalist, team representative, or league source has corroborated the claim. The claim, in fact, fits a much larger and well-documented pattern.

Fact-checking outlet Lead Stories has repeatedly debunked near-identical stories targeting athletes across sports, identifying the operation as ‘Viet Spam.’ According to their investigation, false posts alleging players refused to wear LGBTQ armbands have been made about at least 95 athletes, including Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Aaron Rodgers, and Patrick Mahomes.

These posts originate from fake fan pages managed from Vietnam, which link them to AI-generated websites, and then recycle the same fabricated quotes. As Lead Stories noted, “There was no documentation that any of them made such statements or that their teams or leagues had demanded they wear armbands.”

To sum it up, Maye did not refuse to wear an LGBTQ pride armband, nor did he make the statement attributed to him in the post on X.