Michelle Obama has had enough of the speculation.
The former First Lady Michelle shared her thoughts during the April 9 episode of the Work in Progress with Sophia Bush podcast. Michelle addressed the recent divorce rumors head-on, speaking out for the first time. She also opened up about the personal choices she’s made for her own well-being since departing the White House in 2017.
“The interesting thing is that, when I say ‘no,’ for the most part people are like, ‘I get it, and I’m okay,'” Michelle revealed during the podcast. “That’s the thing that we as women, I think…we struggle with disappointing people. I mean, so much so that this year people were…they couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing.”
The Obamas have been married for over 32 years.
“This couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions for herself, right?” Michelle continued. “But that’s what society does to us. We start actually, finally going, ‘What am I doing? Who am I doing this for?’ And if it doesn’t fit into the sort of stereotype of what people think we should do, then it gets labeled as something negative and horrible.”
“If not now, when? What am I waiting for? How am I going to spend 20 years?” she said. “Now is the time for me to start asking myself these hard questions of, ‘Who do I truly want to be every day?'”
In another part of her conversation with Sophia Bush, Michelle—who shares daughters Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23, with Barack—opened up about how she’s approaching decisions now that she’s 61.
“I’m trying to do that more and more, so what does it look like? It looks like whatever I want it to look like, and I still find time to give speeches and to be out there in the world and to work on projects.”
Michelle’s comments follow Barack’s recent rare reflections on their marriage, where he discussed how serving two consecutive terms as president affected their relationship.
Speaking at an April 3 event for Hamilton College’s Sacerdote Series, former President Barack Obama admitted, “I was in a deep deficit with my wife,” and added that he’s been “trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things.”
