errors parsing json objects using python3.7, unable to access key values

I have a python lambda function which receives posted data. The function looks a bit like this:

import json
import ....


def handle(event, context):

    if event["body"]:
        posted_data = json.loads(event["body"])
        print(posted_data)
        print(posted_data["email"])
        print(posted_data.get("email"))

The line print(posted_data) prints my json object like this:

{
    "tel": "078723646",
    "message": "jsd fljxdisfbv lskdjnildufv nlksjfg",
    "email": "[email protected]"
}

The line print(posted_data["email"]) gives me this error:
[ERROR] TypeError: string indices must be integers

The line print(posted_data.get("email") give this error:
[ERROR] AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'get'

Yet, when I open a console, run python, and do this:

>>> obj = {"tel": "078276353", "message": "uisdjy df jdslfj lsdjf fb", "email": "[email protected]"}
>>> type(obj)

The response I get is: <class 'dict'> So, I'm a little confused as to whether it's a dictionary or a string.

What I need to do is to access each of the values in the object.
I tried this, but that had the effect of reversing the json.loads
I also looked here, but that did not assist. I checked this but it doesn't seem to be relevant to my case.

After a suggestion from @brunns I inserted print(type(posted_data)) after posted_data = json.loads(event["body"]) and discovered that posted_data is in fact a string.

I was expecting json.loads(event["body"]) to convert the json object to a python object. How do I go about retrieving the values in the object?