Michelle Obama Reveals the Real Reason She Skipped Trump’s Inauguration Amid Rumors Her Absence Was the ‘End’ of Her Marriage to Barack
Michelle Obama is slamming those divorce rumors once again. After months of speculation about her marriage to Barack Obama, she’s addressed the question in a sit-down interview with NPR’s Rachel Martin.
The rumors ramped up when the former first lady was absent during President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025 and former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral. She laid out her reasons in the interview. “One of the major decisions I made this year was to stay put and not attend funerals and inaugurations and all the things that I’m supposed to attend,” she said. “That was a part of me using my ambition to say, ‘Let me define what I want to do, apart from what I’m supposed to do, what the world expects of me.’ And I have to own that. Those are my choices.”
After a couple of weeks of being silent, Michelle talked about the decision in a couple of podcast appearances as well as her own podcast IMO, that she hosts with her brother Craig Robinson. “Whatever the backlash was, I had to sit in it and own it,” the Becoming author recalled. “But I didn’t regret it, you know? It’s my life now, and I can say that, now. But we’ll see. Maybe next year, we sit down, I’ll go, ‘You know, Rachel, I went a little too far.'”
She also pointed out that she doesn’t have to post or talk about her relationship for people to know that it’s going strong. “The fact that people don’t see me going out on a date with my husband sparks rumors of the end of our marriage. It’s like, “OK, so we don’t Instagram every minute of our lives. We are 60. We’re 60, y’all. You just are not gonna know what we’re doing every minute of the day.”
On the Work in Progress podcast hosted by Sophia Bush, Michelle talked about how she’s taking full ownership of what she wants to go to and what she doesn’t. Her responsibilities as first lady and a mother helped inform her. “Now, you know, I can’t blame my decisions and indecisions on anyone other than me,” Michelle said, adding, “I think if I’m honest with myself, I could have made a lot of these decisions years ago. But I didn’t give myself that freedom.”
Even the former first lady has trouble saying no to things. “That’s the thing that we as women struggle with — disappointing people. I mean, so much so that this year people couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself. That they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing.”
