Former first lady Michelle Obama dismissed rumors that her marriage to former President Barack Obama is on the rocks, saying on a podcast that she is merely prioritizing herself.
In an interview on actor Sophia Bush’s podcast released Tuesday, Obama said she was making choices solely for herself these days, a freedom she didn’t afford herself before. The former first lady, whose absences from President Jimmy Carter’s state funeral and President Donald Trump’s inauguration led to wild speculation, also seemed to make a cryptic reference to an event that she decided to pass on in recent months.
“So I get to look at my calendar, which I did this year, with a real big example of me, myself, looking at something that I was supposed to do — without naming names — and I chose to do what was best for me,” she said. “Not what I had to do. Not what I thought other people wanted me to do.”
Obama’s absence from Carter’s funeral — where she would have had to sit by Trump — early in January and the presidential inauguration days later fueled rumors that the former first couple was headed for divorce.
“We, as women, I think struggle with disappointing people,” Obama said in the interview. “I mean, so much so that this year people were, you know — 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.” As a former first lady, Obama is bound by the same social norms as her husband that require them to set aside politics and present a unified — or at least a nonantagonistic — front with politicians across the aisle. But Obama has made her feelings about Trump quite clear over the years, and, as she alluded to in her interview, her absences from recent public functions seem to have less to do with her marriage than with her simply not wanting to attend.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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