Michelle Obama breaks silence on divorce rumors: ‘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’

It’s been eight years since Barack Obama left the White House after two terms and widespread popularity. Throughout his presidency, both he and his family — his wife Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia — were in the public eye. However, their fame did not fade after his departure from Washington. On the contrary, the couple continued to stay in the limelight by writing books, launching podcasts, and maintaining a visible presence in public life.

Recently, however, they’ve started to slow down, and they’re seen less frequently, with fewer joint appearances. This shift has sparked speculation in the U.S., with some suggesting that there may be a crisis between the former president and first lady. The rumors eventually reached Michelle Obama, who addressed them during a conversation.

According to Michelle Obama, the newfound freedom and independence the couple has experienced in recent years could be fueling the rumors. She sat down with actress Sophia Bush on the Work in Progress podcast to discuss how her daughters, now adults — Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23 — are living in Los Angeles, building their own careers, and giving Michelle more free time, as well as more control over her own decisions.

Bush asked how Michelle was handling the “empty nest” syndrome, how she spends her time, and what her social life is like now. Obama responded: “It is whatever I want, Sophia, It’s whatever I want. It’s the first time in my life that all of my choices are for me.”

Michelle, 61, shared this with a sense of relief and joy, but also acknowledged the challenges it brought. “It’s also a little scary because as a mom and a busy person, I always had somebody else’s excuse. Why didn’t I do this? Why haven’t I gone there? ‘Well, I have to make sure the girls are okay, or my husband’s president, so I can’t.‘”

For much of her life, her decisions were shaped by the needs of those around her. But now, with her daughters pursuing their own paths and her husband no longer in the White House, that’s no longer the case.

“So now I can’t blame my decisions and indecisions on anyone other than me,” she said. “As a woman, 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. Even as much as I let my kids live their own lives, I use their lives as an excuse for why I couldn’t do something.”

She continued: “Now that’s gone, and so now I get to look at my calendar, which I did this year [...] and I chose to do what was best for me. Not what I had to do, not what I thought other people wanted me to do.”

The former first lady described “without naming names” how she decided not to attend an event she was meant to go to.

“That was an important test for me just as a woman, as an independent person, because like a lot of people, I operate from guilt. What should I do? What is the best thing for everybody else? Right? Because it’s easier for me to say, ‘well, I did this because it was what I was supposed to do.‘”

There have been at least two occasions when Michelle Obama was expected to appear and did not show up. The first was at the beginning of January, during the funeral for former president Jimmy Carter, which brought together the five living U.S. presidents: the outgoing Joe Biden and his wife, Jill; the incoming Donald Trump and his wife, Melania; Bill and Hillary Clinton; and George W. and Laura Bush. Barack Obama was the only one who attended without his wife.

The second instance occurred later that month, at Donald Trump’s inauguration, where Michelle also did not accompany Barack. Her absence from both of these significant events, which hold importance in American democratic culture, sparked concern in some tabloids, leading to speculation about a crisis in the marriage.

In another moment in the podcast, Michelle Obama reflects on how this past year has been particularly difficult due to the loss of her mother, Marian Robinson, who passed away at the end of May 2024. With her mother’s passing, Michelle and her brother, Craig, became the oldest members of their family.

“Me and Craig, my brother, are looking at each other like, oh okay, we are ready for this,” she said. “But I feel like it’s time for me to make some big girl decisions about my life and to own it fully because if not now, when? What am I waiting for? How am I going to spend the next 20 years?”

She continued: “Now is the time for me to start asking myself these hard questions of who do I want? Who do I truly want to be every day? And has that changed? Who do I want to have a lunch with? How long do I want to stay in a place? Do I want to travel? If a girlfriend calls and says, ‘let’s go here,’ I can say yes. 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,” she added cryptically, aware of the rumors surrounding her.

The former first lady also shared that she plans to continue her work in girls’ education, particularly with the library she’s set to open in a year.

“The interesting thing is that when I say no, for the most part, people are like, ‘I get it,‘” she said. “As women, I think we struggle with disappointing people. 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. That this couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions herself.”

“But that’s what society does to us,” she said. “We start actually finally like going, ‘what am I? 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.”

Just a few days ago, Barack Obama spoke about his marriage and his wife in a conversation with the president of Hamilton College, a private university in New York, as reported by The Daily Beast. In the conversation, he admitted to feeling indebted to Michelle Obama. “I was in a deep deficit with my wife,” he said. “So I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things,” he joked.

In another interview with CBS a couple of years ago, he added: “It sure helps to be out of the White House and to have a little more time with her.”

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