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 is speaking out in a new interview to reveal some past secrets from her time as First Lady. She’s also fueling these divorce rumors by saying that “this is the first time” in her life “where every decision that I make is for me.”
Michelle Sounds Off
Michelle sat down with People Magazine this week to talk about why she’s feeling better than ever at 61.
“Fundamentally, I’m the same person,” Michelle said. “But with each decade, I’ve grown wiser. I think I’ve become more confident about who I am. This version of Michelle probably cares less about what other people think.”
People made a point of describing Michelle as being “Mrs. Obama, who these days prefers just Michelle.”
That certainly doesn’t bode well for the state of Michelle’s marriage, now does it?
While Michelle projected confidence during her time as First Lady, she’s now claiming that she secretly felt a lot of pressure behind the scenes.
“As a Black woman, I felt that I had to make sure that people could see my feminine side,” she lamented. “Especially early on in the campaign, when I was being attacked as being angry, a shrew, demeaning my husband — all these labels were coming in on me that were essentially trying to rob me of that femininity.”
Michelle Struggles With Criticisms
Michelle went on to admit that she particularly struggled with criticisms of her bare arms.
“I took it for what it was, pure hypocrisy. I could pull up pictures of Jackie O in a second and see this fashion icon in sleeveless dresses as first lady,” she alleged. “So at a point you’re like, ‘Oh, this is politics. If you can’t beat them, make everybody scared of them.’ That was the motto. If it wasn’t the clothes, it was ‘that terrorist fist bump.’ It was every word that we said. It was my husband’s tan suit.”
These days, Michelle feels free to be out of the White House. She expresses this “freedom” by braiding her hair.
“It’s freedom. Braids allow me to get them done, and then that’s one less thing that I have to think about,” she explained. “When I’m out of the public eye, I am swimming, I am playing tennis and braids represent that kind of freedom for me.”
“We are the former president and first lady,” Michelle concluded. “And so I feel like this is the first time in my life that when I say and do something, here in this interview, writing this book, these are my choices. That is freeing.”
Michelle is opening up further about that in her new book “The Look.” Find out more about that in the video below.
Obama Divorce Rumors
This might not be the best time for Michelle to be venting her secret White House frustrations, however. Indeed, this comes at a difficult time for the Obama family, as Barack and Michelle have been plagued by divorce rumors for quite some time.
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 her older brother Craig Robinson back in March. 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 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 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.”
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’s latest comments about her time in the White House will certainly do nothing to help her case that all is well between her and Barack. Only time will tell if their marriage actually survives this!