Michelle Obama Addresses Marriage Rumors and Embraces Personal Freedom at 61
- Victor Nwoko
- May 1
- 3 min read
Michelle Obama, 61, has directly responded to growing speculation about her marriage to former President Barack Obama, 63, during a candid conversation on a podcast episode released May 1. The former First Lady made it clear that if there were genuine issues in their relationship, the public wouldn’t need to speculate—they’d know.
“If I were having problems with my husband, everybody would know about it,” Michelle said with a laugh. Pointing to her brother Craig Robinson, who joined her on the episode, she added, “He would know it. And everybody would know it. I’m not a martyr. I would be problem solving in public. ‘Let me tell you what he did.’”
Robinson, 63, humorously added, “If they were having a problem, I would be doing a podcast with him,” implying that any rift between the Obamas would be unmistakably public.
Michelle addressed rumors that intensified after she chose not to attend former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral or former President Donald Trump’s second inauguration—events Barack Obama attended alone. While these absences sparked speculation, Michelle explained they had nothing to do with marital discord. “The beauty of my husband and our partnership is that neither one of us was really ever gonna quit at it, 'cause that’s not who we are,” she said. “And I know that about him. He knows that about me.”
She further emphasized that at this stage in her life, she feels empowered to prioritize her own well-being. “I feel like now I have permission to do what I want to do,” she said. “I think at 61, I’m finally owning my wisdom. I think it takes women until we’re about 60 to be like, ‘I think I know a thing or two.’”
Reflecting on her decision to skip Trump’s January inauguration, Michelle explained that she evaluated what she truly wanted in the moment. “As a box-checking person who has been doing the right thing, always going high, I think now I earned a little bit of, ‘Well, how do I feel?’ Do I want to upend my life and take this trip and leave my peace and my children for this? I didn’t have to, but that was my choice.”
She admitted that earlier in life she “never” would have missed such an event if it felt like the “right thing to do for other people to set an example.” But now, she realizes the importance of setting an example by honoring her own boundaries. “I think I just told myself, ‘I think I’ve done enough of that. And if I haven’t, then I never will. It will never be enough,’” she said.
In a prior episode of her own podcast, Michelle reflected on the pressure she felt to meet expectations. “People couldn't believe that I was saying no for any other reason, they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart,” she said. “It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the thing that was right for me. That was a hard thing for me to do.”
Michelle expressed hope that her decisions would serve as a model for her daughters, Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23, and for young women everywhere. “I want our daughters, I want the young women out there… I want my girls to start practicing different strategies for saying no.”
She concluded by addressing the burden many women carry to meet impossible standards. “After all that I've done in this world, if I am still showing them that I have to keep proving that I love my country, that I’m doing the right thing, that I’m always going high—even in the face of a lot of hypocrisy and contradiction—then all I’m doing is keeping that crazy bar that our mothers and grandmothers set for us.”
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