Michelle Obama Offers Telling Comment After Barack Divorce Rumors: ‘The 1st Time I’ve Been Completely Free’
It seems like every celebrity couple has to contend with divorce rumors, and at this point, former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle count as a one. They have, after all, been out of politics for a while, but remain public figures. They have a content partnership deal with Netflix through their production company. They do podcasts. So, the divorce rumors are not surprising.
The former First Lady recently spoke about her life these days in a way that some might think gives credence to those rumors. On an episode of her podcast IMO, which she hosts with older brother Craig Robinson, Obama spoke about being an empty nester with a husband who is no longer the President of the United States, and said, “I mean at this stage in life for me, personally, is the first time I’ve been completely free,” she shared with guest Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
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“There’s been a release where every choice I make is not about my husband, not about his career, not about my family, not about what my kids need or where they’re going, it’s totally about me,” she admitted, even joking: “This is when we start living ladies.”
However, this seems to have nothing to do with her marriage and seems more about the place and moment in life she’s in right now, with two adult children living their lives and no political pressure. In May, Michelle Obama set the record straight during a podcast with entrepreneur and investor Steven Bartlett.
“If I were having problems with my husband, everybody would know about it,” she said. And though she admitted marriage has sometimes been “hard,” she added that “I wouldn’t trade it,” calling President Obama, “as the young people say… my person.”
“The beauty of my husband and our partnership is that neither one of us was ever really, ever going to quit at it, because that’s not who we are. And I know that about him. He knows that about me.”
Earlier in her own podcast, the former First Lady spoke about skipping Donald Trump’s inauguration, which was partly where the rumors about a possible divorce started. “My decision to skip the inauguration, what people don’t realize, or my decision to make choices at the beginning of this year that suited me, were met with such ridicule and criticism,” she explained. “People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason, that they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart, you know.”
She has also recently spoken about her daughter Malia’s decision to change her name professionally. “Our daughters [Malia and Sasha] are 25 and 23. They are young adult women, but they definitely went through a period in their teen years where it was the push away … [where] you’re trying to distinguish yourself,” she said. “I mean, it is very important for my kids to feel like they’ve earned what they are getting in the world, and they don’t want people to assume that they don’t work hard, that they’re just naturally, just handed things,” she added. “They’re very sensitive to that — they want to be their own people.”
And that means Michelle Obama can be her own person as well, and make her own decisions for herself. It just doesn’t look like one of those will be divorcing former President Barack Obama. No, the two of them are doing just fine.
