Over the past few months, rumors have been swirling that Barack and Michelle Obama are heading for divorce. According to these rumors, Barack and Michelle have been living “separate lives” for quite some time.
Now, Michelle has shocked the world with a menopause confession as these divorce rumors continue to spread. She also has revealed that she resorted to hormone therapy to treat her menopause symptoms.
Michelle Talks Menopause
On Wednesday’s episode of her IMO podcast, which she hosts with her older brother Craig Robinson, Michelle sat down with the OB/GYN and nationally renowned expert in women’s health Sharon Malone. During their conversation, Michelle, 61, surprisingly revealed that she was going through menopause during her husband’s first presidential term, which lasted from 2009 until 2013.
“It comes [suddenly], you wake up one day and you’re having hot flashes,” Michelle revealed. “It had to be in my mid-late 40s. I woke up one day and started having these severe bouts of heat flashing and sweating. I was like, what happened? I woke up and was different.”
Instead of calling her doctor, Michelle simply told herself “I can get through this.” However, it soon became extremely difficult for her to balance her First Lady duties with handling these hot flashes.
“I was the First Lady so I’ve got speeches to give, I’m on planes, I’m [dressed up] and have my hair done,” she recalled. “There was one trip I had about 40 hot flashes, and I was like, I can’t live like this. I can’t get off this plane soaking wet, I can’t factor in the time to change clothes and redo my hair during a day of speeches.”
Michelle went on to admit that she feared that people might think she was lying if they saw her sweating during her speeches.
“It’s like a hot furnace is lit inside you,” she lamented of these hot flashes. “It’s like your organs are hot coals. And then you burst with water, you’re dripping, your clothes are soaking wet, you have to change your clothes.”
Michelle Undergoes Hormone Therapy
Michelle ultimately resorted to getting hormone therapy in order to treat her menopause symptoms. In the end, this helped her in a big way.
“We need to talk about the symptoms because a lot of women aren’t even taught to be aware of what’s happening to their bodies,” Michelle stressed. “I want women to embrace tradition, because that’s still something we struggle with. We view transition as something negative, but we are always evolving and that’s a good thing.”
“If we’re alive enough to have a transition then we’re blessed and we shouldn’t be ashamed of it,” she continued. “I’m trying – because it’s something you never stop working on as a woman – to figure out all the good and not get sucked into what I didn’t have or didn’t do because there’s still time ahead.”
Michelle then said that even though she’s in her 60s, she believes that she’s currently in the “best time of her entire life.”
“The best time of my entire life is right now. It really is. I do not wish to be 20 again, not in any way shape or form,” she concluded. “There is some real freedom about this time in life. And I’m already thinking about my 70s and 80s, I want to be able to do some of this stuff in my 80s.”
Obama Divorce Rumors
It may come as a surprise that Michelle believes that she’s in the “best time of her entire life,” given the rampant divorce rumors that have plagued her and Barack over the past year.
These divorce rumors escalated in a big way back in January, when Michelle skipped both the funeral of Jimmy Carter and the inauguration of Donald Trump. She was the only living former First Lady to miss each of these events. This forced Barack to attend both events alone.
“I have been hearing this rumor that the Obamas are getting a divorce by reputable people,” political commentator Meghan McCain said on reporter Tara Palmeri’s podcast earlier this year. “I’m not talking about TMZ, I’m not talking about Perez Hilton, although I love him, he’s my friend.”
“I’m talking about like very serious journalists telling me that they’re hearing that the Obama divorce rumors are true,” she continued.
“We’ve heard that for a long time,” replied Tara, who has long covered Washington politics. “Like I just heard that they live separate lives.”
Listen to Meghan and Tara talk more about this in the clip below.
Michelle Accused Of ‘Really Disliking’ Barack
Michelle launched her IMO podcast with Craig back in March. Since then, Michelle has used it to bash Barack, 64, and air his dirty laundry seemingly every chance she gets.
In fact, Michelle has complained about Barack so many times on her podcast that the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently claimed that the former First Lady “really dislikes her husband, and it’s super obvious.”
“I’m not just saying that to be catty,” Tucker explained. “I think I’m trying to feel compassion for her but her hostility toward the guy is unbelievable.”
Tucker’s fellow former Fox News host Megyn Kelly was quick to agree. She pointed out that “everything Michelle says about her husband is negative.”
“I almost never say negative things about Doug,” Megyn added, referring to her husband Doug Brunt. “He’s not perfect but when I think about him, I don’t immediately go to whatever is negative. I go to what’s positive and what I love about him.”
Watch Tucker and Megyn talk more about this in the video below.
The Obamas Respond
Back in July, Barack appeared on Michelle’s IMO podcast. There, they desperately tried to shoot down the escalating divorce rumors.
“There hasn’t been one moment in our marriage where I thought about quitting my man,” Michelle claimed. “And we’ve had some really hard times. So we had a lot of fun times, a lot of adventures, and I have become a better person because of the man I’m married to.”
“These are the kinds of things that I just miss, right?” Barack chimed in to add. “So I don’t even know this stuff’s going on. And then somebody will mention it to me and I’m all like, ‘what are you talking about?'”
Unfortunately for the Obamas, however, many are still not buying their claims that their marriage is still going strong.
Michelle can rant about menopause all that she wants to, but it won’t stop the speculation about the state of her marriage. Only time will tell if the Obama marriage will actually survive!