Over the past year 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 is admitting that she and Barack are navigating a “new phase” of their marriage as these divorce rumors continue to spread.
‘A New Phase’ For Michelle And Barack
On a recent episode of her IMO podcast, Michelle, 62, revealed that she and Barack, 64, are taking some time to adjust to a new chapter in their lives. She claims that the reason behind. this is that they are now empty nesters, as their daughters Malia, 27, and Sasha, 24, have each moved out.
However, it should be noted that Sasha moved out six years ago when she started college. That would be the time when most empty nesters would be navigating a “new phase” of their marriage. To hear Michelle tell it, however, you would think that Sasha only just left.
“Our kids are grown. They’re out,” Michelle said. “We’re looking at each other like, ‘Hey, I remember you.'”
“I think it’s a new phase for us, which takes time,” she added.
Michelle went on to explain that she and Barack are rediscovering themselves as individuals along with who they are together.
“You have to factor into the newness of now we’re doing this, we’re back to just me and him,” she explained. “It takes time, is all I’m saying. All of these new stages take time for adjustment.”
“All I’m saying is that it all takes time, and to think that there aren’t going to be bumps along the way of each of those phases, right?” she continued. “In any long relationship, there are going to be years, months, hours, long periods of time, if you add it all up, where things just don’t feel right. You don’t quit on it.”
“Sometimes that means you dig deeper, and if you don’t dig deeper, you miss all the stuff on the end,” she concluded.
Obama Divorce Rumors
Despite Michelle’s insistence that she and Barack are not “quitting” on their marriage, many believe that that’s exactly what their doing. Indeed, over the past year, they’ve been plagued by rampant rumors that they are divorcing.
These divorce rumors escalated in a big way back in January of last year, 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 in 2025. “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 back in March of last year. Since then, Michelle has used it to bash Barack 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 has 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 own 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.”
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’s latest comments about navigating a “new phase” of her marriage will certainly do nothing to help her case that all is well between her and Barack. Only time will tell if the Obama marriage will actually survive!