Michelle Obama addresses recent absences from political events and divorce rumors

[marble falls]

Michelle Obama addresses recent absences from political events and divorce rumors

By Kaanita Iyer, CNN
3 minute read
Updated 8:29 PM EDT, Wed April 9, 2025

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/09/politics/michelle-obama-podcast-divorce-rumors/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc

?q=w_1160,c_fill/f_webp

Former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama greets her husband, former U.S. President Barack Obama, on stage during Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., August 20, 2024. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer
Former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama greets her husband, former U.S. President Barack Obama, on stage during Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., August 20, 2024. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer
Alyssa Pointer/Reuters




CNN —

-snip-

Speaking of her life eight years out of the White House with two adult children, Obama said on the “Work in Progress” podcast with actress Sophia Bush that she now has the opportunity to control her own calendar and can now make “a choice for myself.”

“I could have made a lot of these decisions years ago, but I didn’t give myself that freedom,” Obama said, “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.”

She continued: “And now that’s gone. And so now I have to look at my — I get to look at my calendar, which I did this year, was a real big example of me, myself looking at something that I was supposed to do — you know, without naming names — and 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.”

-snip-

She continued: “That’s the thing that we as women, I think we struggle with like disappointing people. I mean so much so that this year people were, you know — they couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing.”

-snip-







In Michigan before the 2024 election, Michele Obama said: “Please, please do not hand our fates over to the likes of Trump, who knows nothing about us, who has shown deep contempt for us.” ... “Because a vote for him is a vote against us, against our health, against our worth.”

I wonder if she'd consider a cabinet position in the next Democratic administration in 2028.

[bdamomma]

1. I have so much respect

for everything she has said and done during Kamala Harris's election.

[SheltieLover]

2. Me too!

She is a decent human being who hates politics & is being true to herself. Good for her!

[Irish_Dem]

3. She has zero tolerance for political games and bullshit.

She will never go into politics.

[stillcool]

4. Democrats expect so much more

from other human beings and are very complacent about demands on themselves, and their families. They are different, as are Republicans.

[Prairie Gates]

5. I have not heard a single divorce rumor outside of this headline

CNN is trash.

[whathehell]

6. I've heard of them..

and I don't watch CNN.

[TommyT139]

8. Me too - but that's just more cloaked sexism.

Not showing up to major events on the arm of her [brilliant, handsome, patriotic] husband? Well that must mean they are divorcing!

Or it could be that she is truly a match to her husband, yet someone who sacrificed for years, which couldn't have helped the depression she has mentioned (iirc). They are mature enough a couple to have their own lives -- far from getting a divorce.

Then again, if they do, that's still none of our business.

[uponit7771]

17. THIS!!! ☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾The sexism oozes from this article and so does the clickbait

[calimary]

19. DEFINITELY This!!!

These two have sacrificed SO much in service to our country, and for all of us in it. He served and she supported him in his service to America and the world.

They’ve given ALL. Seems to me that ought to be enough. ESPECIALLY by now!!! They’ve earned a quiet and peaceful private life. We should honor that, for them both.

Fuck the “rumor mill”!!!

[whathehell]

20. I didn't necessarily believe the rumors..

I just heard about them, but I agree that it's no one's business but their own..

[Skittles]

21. that's what I think

she is a private citizen; outside of her family it's not really anyone's business where she is or what she is up to.......

[marble falls]

10. There's a ton of scuttlebutt on this speculation on the RW universe.

[marble falls]

11. CNN in this case is debunking those rumors.

[Ping Tung]

7. I like the way she thinks. Supreme Court seat?

[marble falls]

12. She for HHS, Barack for SCOTUS. Presidents have gone onto SCOTUS before.

[marble falls]

13. And before there's any quibble: Following law school, Obama became an associate at the Chicago office of the ...

... Following law school, Obama became an associate at the Chicago office of the law firm Sidley & Austin, where she met her future husband Barack. At the firm, she worked on marketing and intellectual property law.[3] She continues to hold her law license, but as she no longer needs it for her work, she has kept it on a voluntary inactive status since 1993.[76][77]



Barrack: Despite being offered a full scholarship to Northwestern University School of Law, Obama enrolled at Harvard Law School in the fall of 1988, living in nearby Somerville, Massachusetts.[61] He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year,[62] president of the journal in his second year,[56][63] and research assistant to the constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe while at Harvard.[64] During his summers, he returned to Chicago, where he worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.[65] Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained national media attention[56][63] and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations,[66] which evolved into a personal memoir. The manuscript was published in mid-1995 as Dreams from My Father.[66] Obama graduated from Harvard Law in 1991 with a Juris Doctor magna cum laude.[67][62]

University of Chicago Law School

In 1991, Obama accepted a two-year position as Visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School to work on his first book.[66][68] He then taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, first as a lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and then as a senior lecturer from 1996 to 2004.[69]

From April to October 1992, Obama directed Illinois's Project Vote, a voter registration campaign with ten staffers and seven hundred volunteer registrars; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, leading Crain's Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.[70]

[tritsofme]

16. They are both too old for SCOTUS.

Though it is definitely a fun thought!

[Quiet Em]

9. Her daughters are grown and on their own, her husband is not in office,

She's liberated and free to do whatever she wants.

I can totally relate. I remember when I arrived at that very liberation when my children were grown and on their own. It's a personal freedom for women.

[EdmondDantes_]

14. I imagine it must be even worse due to being first lady

Not even just all of the work that entails, but the extra security and limitations on what she could do.

[Quiet Em]

15. absolutely.

[MayReasonRule]

18. I'd Be All For It!