Michelle Obama Confronts Barack Marriage Rumors Head On, Says if They Were Struggling ‘Everybody Would Know About It’

• Michelle Obama discussed the rumors surrounding her marriage to Barack Obama after she opted not to attend two high-profile events in January.
• She said that if there was a problem in her marriage, “everybody would know about it.”
• The former first lady said she’s no longer making decisions solely for the good of others.

Michelle Obama isn’t holding back when it comes to addressing the rumors of a rift in her marriage to Barack Obama.

The former first lady, 61, appeared on the Thursday, May 1, episode of The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett podcast, where she spoke about the recent speculation that there was trouble in paradise after she opted not to attend the funeral of President Jimmy Carter and the second inauguration of President Donald Trump, leaving her husband, 63, to attend both events solo.

“If I were having problems with my husband, everybody would know about it,” Michelle said, laughing.

She pointed to her brother and podcast co-host Craig Robinson, adding, “He would know it. And everybody would know it. I’m not a martyr. I would be problem solving in public. ‘Let me tell you what he did.’ “

Robinson, 63, also joked of Barack, “If they were having a problem, I would be doing a podcast with him.”

Michelle — who shares daughters Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23, with Barack — noted earlier in the podcast that despite making comments about the rocky parts of her marriage to the former president throughout her time in the spotlight, they were never actually at risk of divorce.

“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. “And I know that about him. He knows that about me.”

As for her decision not to attend certain events, Michelle said that these days, “I feel like now I have permission to do what I want to do.”

“I think at 61, I’m finally owning my wisdom,” she continued. “I think it takes women until we’re about 60 to be like, ‘I think I know a thing or two.’ “

Specifically addressing her decision not to attend Trump’s January inauguration, Michelle shared that she took stock of her own feelings for once.

“What do I want to do in this moment? As a box-checking, a person who has been box-checking her whole life, doing the right thing, trying to always be an example, always going high, I think now I earned a little bit of ‘well, how do I feel?’ “ she mused. “ ‘Do I want to upend my life and take this trip and leave my peace and my children for this?’ I didn’t have to, but that was my choice.”

Prior to this era in her life, Michelle said that she “never” would have missed something if it felt like the “right thing to do for other people to set an example.”

“I think I just told myself, ‘I think I’ve done enough of that. And if I haven’t, then I never will. It will never be enough,’ “ she said.

On her IMO podcast last month, Michelle detailed her decision to skip the historic event.

“People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason, they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart,” she said. “It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the things that was right for me, that was a hard thing for me to do.”

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She also wanted her decision to set a good example for her children.

“I want our daughters, I want the young women out there… I want my girls to start practicing different strategies for saying no,” she continued.

“After all that I’ve done in this world, if I am still showing them that I have to keep- I still have to show people that I love my country, that I’m doing the right thing, that I am always setting, going high all the time, even in the face of a lot of hypocrisy and contradiction, all I’m doing is keeping that crazy bar that our mothers and grandmothers set for us.”