Malia Obama Goes Bra Free in 1st Sighting in Months After Report She Dropped Her Last Name to ‘Push Away’ From Her Parents
StyleCaster Editors
Malia Obama isn’t exactly a high-profile person these days. Ever since her parents, Michelle and Barack Obama, left the White House, she’s been doing her own thing. And yet, interest in her is still higher than it would be in someone else of her age doing the same. She is, after all, the daughter of a former President. That she can’t change. Not that we know for sure if she’d want to.
What we know is that paparazzi caught her looking cool as she stepped out with her friends in Los Angeles on Sunday, January 11, per The Daily Mail. Malia was wearing a pair of black, high-waisted jeans, a white tank top, and no bra. She also had a yellow and orange sweater tied around her chest.
Malia Obama has been living in LA since she finished her studies at Harvard University in 2021. Her short film, The Heart, debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024. For that film she was only credited as Malia Ann, a name that also holds a lot of family weight. It’s the first name of Barack Obama’s late mother Ann Dunham, who died in 1995.
In her Meet the Artist video for Sundance, she said, “The film is about lost objects and lonely people and forgiveness and regret,” adding, “We hope that you enjoy the film and that it makes you feel a bit less lonely or at least reminds you not to forget about the people who are.”
She previously worked as an intern on the CBS sci-fi series, Extant, and then on HBO’s Girls. She then worked as a staff writer on the Amazon Prime series Swarm. Last time Malia Obama was spotted by paparazzi, she was meeting a friend for lunch last November. Both her parents shared a family picture for Thanksgiving on Instagram, and their Christmas picture also featured all four of them, including Malia and sister Sasha.
Her mother, Michelle Obama, opened up on the podcast “Sibling Revelry” with Kate and Oliver Hudson, about the fact that Malia changed her name professionally as part of her push to “make her way” as a director without being defined by her parents.
“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,” the former first lady added. “They’re very sensitive to that — they want to be their own people.”
It seems like Malia Obama is doing her best to be just that, while her parents continue on their more public roads. And considering her background, we will probably continue to hear her name in entertainment circles for years to come.
