Michelle Obama Explains Separation from Barack Obama

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For someone who claims she isn’t getting divorced, Michelle Obama sure talks a lot about the speculation that she might be getting divorced.

Over the last several weeks, rumors have persisted that the former First Lady and her rather famous husband, former President of the United States Barack Obama, are not on the same romantic page.

As reported in February, this sort of divorce chatter hit a fevered pitch in early 2025 after Michelle failed to attend a couple of public events with her spouse.

Then, during a conversation with Hamilton College President Steven Tepper on April 3, Barack was honest about being in “in a deep deficit with my wife” shortly after his two terms as Commander-in-Chief ended in 2016.

“I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things,” the popular politician said at the time.

The couple got married in 1992 and are parents of two daughters: Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23.

Like any husband and wife, they’ve had their share of ups and downs — but these ups and downs have played out in the most glaring spotlight possible, considering one of them was leader of the free world for eight years.

This week, meanwhile, Michelle Obama was a guest on NPR’s Wild Card podcast.

Once again, the topic of her marriage’s stability was raised, highlighted by the question of why she and Barack have seldomly been seen out and about of late.

“It’s like, ‘Okay, so we don’t Instagram every minute of our lives. We are 60. We’re 60, y’all’. You just are not gonna know what we’re doing every minute of the day,” she said rather simply.

Last August, the Obamas gave speeches on stage at the Democratic National Convention in order to endorse Kamala Harris for President.

Barack Obama later appeared at the funeral of the late president Jimmy Carter in January (solo) … and two weeks later made another solo trip to Donald Trump’s inauguration while his wife hung out in Hawaii.

“One of the major decisions I made this year was to stay put and not attend funerals and inaugurations and all the things that I’m supposed to attend,” Mrs. Obama added during the podcast on Thursday.

“That was a part of me using my ambition to say, ‘Let me define what I want to do, apart from what I’m supposed to do, what the world expects of me.’ And I have to own that.”

In general, as she has emphasized before, Michelle is just making her own decisions as an independent and strong woman.

“If I were having problems with my husband, everybody would know about it,” Michelle said, laughing, while a guest on the May 1 episode of The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett.

“The beauty of my husband and our partnership is that neither one of us was really ever gonna quit at it, ’cause that’s not who we are,” she said on this same program in reference to past problems the pair worked through. “And I know that about him. He knows that about me.”

All this said, Michelle Obama isn’t bitter about what folks have been saying. She appears to understand.

“Those are my choices,” she added this week of decisions she made to stay away from certain events and gatherings.

“Whatever the backlash was, I had to sit in it and own it. But I didn’t regret it, you know? It’s my life now, and I can say that, now.”

Michelle Obama Explains Separation from Barack Obama was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.