This year, there are a lot of rumors flying around that Barack and Michelle’s marriage is not all that strong, especially after Michelle skipped Jimmy Carter’s funeral AND the Trump inauguration in January. While many of us completely understood why MO skipped Trump’s unhinged coronation, that snub came with tabloid reports that the Obamas don’t even live together at this point too. So, I don’t know. But Michelle is talking about it a little bit. She appeared on Sophie Bush’s podcast and MO talked about what her life is like now that she can do whatever the hell she wants.
Michelle Obama is opening up about her newfound independence, and how it fueled speculation that she and her husband Barack Obama were headed for divorce. In a new episode of Sophia Bush’s iHeart Radio podcast Work in Progress which landed on Tuesday, April 8, Michelle, 61, opened up about how her life has changed since leaving the White House and becoming an empty nester.
“I want to know what your life and your social life looks like right now,” Bush, 42 asked the former first lady.
“It is whatever I want, Sophia, It’s whatever I want,” Michelle responded. “It’s the first time in my life all of my choices are for me.”
Michelle went on to explain how her dual roles of mother to daughters Sasha and Malia and the first lady limited her decision-making in the past. Michelle noted that she made excuses like “I have to make sure the girls are okay, or my husband’s president, so I can’t do that” to avoid making decisions.
“Now, you know, I can’t blame my decisions and indecisions on anyone other than me,” Michelle said, adding, “I think if I’m honest with myself, I could have made a lot of these decisions years ago. But I didn’t give myself that freedom.”
She also touched upon how this newfound freedom combined with constant public scrutiny led to gossip and speculation about the state of her marriage. “That’s the thing that we as women struggle with — disappointing people. I mean, so much so that this year people couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself. That they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing. This couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions herself, right? But that’s what society does to us. We start actually going, what am I? What am I doing? What 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.”
“That they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing. This couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions herself, right?” I… don’t understand? Is she saying that she’s a grown woman making decisions for herself – reportedly, decisions like spending the bulk of her time away from her husband – and that people are making that into rumors of divorce? It can be both, Michelle! For goodness sake. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Michelle really cares, and that’s the larger point. She’s heard the divorce rumors and she DGAF. And she’s not going to slap on a happy face just to keep up appearances or stop the rumors. She’s just going to live her life and do whatever she wants. Good for her, truly. I respect that, I admire that. But I also think the Obama marriage is in a struggle era.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
