Usha Vance shows up without her wedding ring a month after JD Vance and Erika Kirk made headlines. What’s going on?

Following Charlie Kirk’s death, his widow Erika Kirk has been in the headlines almost every week. But her public interaction with Vice President JD Vance last month raised eyebrows. Now weeks later, Usha Vance was seen attending an event without her wedding ring.

On Oct. 29, during a Turning Point at the University of Mississippi, Erika Kirk’s intimate hug with Vance went viral. Erika’s words about Vance during the event also didn’t sit right with the public. “No one will ever replace my husband. But I do see some similarities of my husband in JD… I do,” she said.

People argued that someone who had just lost their husband would never compare them to another man after only a month. This led to rumors online that Erika and JD Vance might be romantically involved. Which, of course, was outrageous since JD has been married to Usha Vance for 11 years and has three children together.

But the heat on the incident died down. Until on Nov. 19, when Usha Vance showed up at Camp Lejeune, a military training facility in North Carolina, without her wedding ring. The Second Lady was reportedly there with First Lady Melania Trump. And as soon as close-up shots of Usha’s bare fingers went viral, the rumors were resurrected.

Are JD and Usha Vance getting a divorce?

People soon began treating her bare fingers as a confirmation of her separation from JD Vance. Usha’s team swiftly responded to the situation, clarifying why the ring is missing. “Usha is a mother of three young children, who does a lot of dishes, gives lots of baths, and forgets her ring sometimes,” a spokesperson for the Second Lady told PEOPLE.

So, at least as far as the official line goes, JD and Usha Vance aren’t separating, and it was an honest mistake on her part to forget the wedding ring. Yet, people aren’t happy with JD’s recent behavior toward his wife.

What did JD Vance say about Usha’s religion?

During the same event where he embraced Erika a little too closely, JD also suggested that he wants his devout Hindu wife to convert to Christianity. “Do I hope eventually that she is somehow moved in by the church? Yeah, I honestly I do wish that because I believe in the Christian gospel. And I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way,” he said.

That enraged the American Hindu community, as well as people who believe that demanding an individual to convert is stupid and intolerant. Erika, on the other hand, has had a rough time in the public eye in the months following her husband’s death. From allegations of faking her tears to the outrageous JD Vance romantic link, she’s dealing with more controversy than her husband did.