Former first lady Michelle Obama has addressed the rumours which swirled earlier this year that she and husband Barack Obama were getting a divorce. Speaking to actor Sophia Bush on her podcast, The Conversation Continues, Obama said that people “couldn't even fathom that I was making a choice for myself”, leading them to jump to conclusions about her relationship. “They had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing,” she said. What were the rumours and was there any truth to them?
Despite ups and downs over the years, the Obamas have nearly always presented as a united front. Therefore, the fact that Barack Obama attended major state events by himself in January sparked questions and unearthed some outlandish stories from the gutters of tabloid gossip, including the bizarre theory that the former president was linked with Hollywood star Jennifer Aniston.
Rumours began to circulate that Barack and Michelle Obama were drifting apart after Mr Obama attended former president Jimmy Carter’s state funeral without his wife on January 9. All five living presidents and their partners were there, except Michelle, whose advisers told CNN that she had a scheduling conflict and was in Hawaii on an extended holiday.
Days later, the Obamas’ office released a statement saying that Michelle would be absent from another major political event: Donald Trump’s inauguration. They did not provide a reason. "Former President Barack Obama is confirmed to attend the 60th Inaugural Ceremonies. Former First Lady Michelle Obama will not attend the upcoming inauguration," the statement read. This marks a break from tradition, although Donald and Melania Trump did not attend Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.
The explanation for this could be as simple as the fact that Michelle Obama has long expressed her distaste for President Trump. At a campaign rally for Kamala Harris back in November, she described Trump as “a convicted felon, a known slumlord” and a “predator found liable for sexual abuse”.
She did attend his first inauguration back in 2020 but said on her podcast in 2023 how unpleasant it had been “to sit on that stage and watch the opposite of what we represented on display — there was no diversity, there was no colour on that stage, there was no reflection of the broader sense of America”. Obama also said she “cried for 30 minutes straight” after the inauguration.
Yet journalists and pundits mused over whether her absence is a sign of internal fissures. Some said they had been hearing whispers for months, including blogger Meghan McCain and Tara Palmeri, Puck News’s senior political correspondent. Discussing the story on a podcast together, McCain said that she had been hearing the rumour from “very serious journalists”. Palmeri agreed: “I just heard that they live separate lives.”
Incidentally, Meghan McCain is the daughter of Republican senator John McCain, who Obama defeated in the 2008 presidential election. She was not willing to name any of the “reputable people” she had heard the rumours from.
As if to set the record straight, Barack Obama shared a heartfelt post to Instagram on Michelle’s birthday on January 17. “Happy birthday to the love of my life,” the caption read. “You fill every room with warmth, wisdom, humor, and grace – and you look good doing it. I’m so lucky to be able to take on life’s adventures with you. Love you!”
Yet sceptics like Meghan McCain were unconvinced. “I would kill Ben if he put a picture of me looking like no makeup with that lighting on social media,“ McCain said, referring to her husband, Ben Domenech. ”I would kill him. So for me it didn’t help the rumours, and like why are you putting this like s***ty picture of your wife up?”
So, the evidence for a marriage on the rocks went something like this: Michelle Obama skips inauguration of man she detests and husband uploads purportedly unflattering picture of her for birthday. Hardly a smoking gun.
Just in case that wasn’t enough, a crackpot cover story from In Touch magazine came back in the headlines, which claimed to know “The truth about Jen & Barack”. That is, Jennifer Aniston of Friends fame. “They’re obsessed with each other!” claimed one highly reputably anonymous source from “power circles in Washington and Hollywood”.
Aniston addressed the story back in October during an appearance on chat show host Jimmy Kimmel’s show. “Of all the calls you get from your publicist where you're just like ‘Oh, no, what's it gonna be?’ or you get an email saying some cheesy tabloid is gonna make up a story — and then it's that…I was not mad at it!” she laughed, before clarifying that the story is “absolutely untrue” and she has only met Obama once.
Aside from heard-it-through-the-grapevine chitter chatter, there was little to suggest that the couple were on the rocks. The rumours turned out to be just that. “We as women, I think we struggle with disappointing people,” said Michelle Obama on The Conversation Continues. She explained that people were unable to see her decision not to attend Carter’s funeral and Trump’s inauguration as “a grown woman just making a set of decisions for herself,” instead feeding off hearsay.
“That's what society does to us,” she said.
