Michelle Obama opens up about divorce rumours: Chose to do what's best for me

Former First Lady Michelle Obama addressed months of speculation about her marriage to former President Barack Obama, pushing back on rumours of a split and calling out societal assumptions about women’s independence.

In a candid conversation on actor Sophia Bush’s podcast Work in Progress, Michelle Obama, 61, opened up about her recent absence from high-profile political events and explained that her decisions have been rooted in self-care, not marital discord.

“I now have the opportunity to control my own calendar,” she said. “I could have made a lot of these decisions years ago, but I didn’t give myself that freedom. Maybe 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.”

Rumours that the high-powered couple was headed for divorce began doing the rounds earlier this year when Barack Obama attended former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral in January without Michelle. Her announcement days later that she would not attend Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration only fueled rumours of a rift.

But Michelle asserted that was just her setting personal boundaries.

“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,” she said.

In a pointed observation, Michelle said the wild divorce speculations stemmed from people’s inability to accept a woman simply asserting independence.

“That’s the thing that we as women, I think we struggle with — disappointing people,” she said. “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 for herself, right?” she added. “But that’s what society does to us.”

Michelle’s remarks came just days after Barack Obama offered a candid reflection on how his time in office affected their relationship.

“I was in a deep deficit with my wife,” he said during an April 3 event at Hamilton College. “I’ve been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things.”

The couple has previously acknowledged their marital challenges. In her memoir Becoming, Michelle wrote that Barack’s political career led to periods of loneliness and frustration in their marriage, saying, “There were 10 years where I couldn’t stand him.”

Still, she added, “I would take 10 bad years over 30. It’s just how you look at it.”