Michelle Obama opened up about embracing freedom in a new chapter of her life, after years of prioritizing her daughters and her husband Barack Obama.
The 61-year-old revealed that she had felt a kind of “release” in recent months by pursuing her own passions and choosing to forgo certain official events, such as Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
“I mean at this stage in life for me, personally, is the first time I’ve been completely free,” Michelle shared on her IMO podcast with her brother Craig Robinson and guest Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
“There’s been a release where every choice I make is not about my husband, not about his career, not about my family, not about what my kids need or where they’re going, it’s totally about me,” she continued. “This is when we start living ladies.”
Michelle and Barack are the proud parents of daughters Malia, 26, and Sasha, 24, who have built their own lives on the West Coast and live together in Los Angeles.
Fans and critics alike were left shocked when the mother of two opted out of the inauguration in January and President Jimmy Carter’s funeral in the same month, while her husband attended the events solo.
The former First Lady had previously opened up about her decision on the Work in Progress podcast in April, commenting on the speculation surrounding her marriage to Barack in the wake of her absence.
“That’s the thing that we as women struggle with — disappointing people. I mean, so much so that this year people couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself,” she said. “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 herself, right? But that’s what society does to us,” she continued.
“We start actually going, what am I? What am I doing? What am I doing this for? And if it doesn’t fit into the sort of stereotype of what people think we should do, then it gets labeled as something negative and horrible.”
Michelle doubled down on her commitment to her marriage on a previous episode of IMO, sharing that the couple are constantly working to be better partners for each other.
“The beauty of my husband and our partnership is that neither one of us was ever really, ever going to quit at it, because that’s not who we are. And I know that about him. He knows that about me,” she said. “I talk about these things because I think that people give up too quickly on marriage.”
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She added: “There is so much friction built into the equation. And if you’re not getting help, talking about it, going to therapy, just understanding how things are changing, and how do you continuously renegotiate your relationship with your partner, I just see people quitting.”
As Malia pursues a career in filmmaking and Sasha continues further studies after graduating from the University of Southern California, Michelle will have ample time to focus on her own pursuits, like her chart-topping podcast.
