Michelle Obama finally shares why she didn’t show up to Donald Trump’s Inauguration.
On the recent episode of her podcast, “IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson,” the former First Lady explained that there was a personal reason for her absence. With actress Taraji P. Henson as a guest on the show, Obama explained that her decision came after she was seated next to Trump during former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral.
“My decision to skip the inauguration, what people don’t realize, or my decision to make choices at the beginning of this year that suited me, were met with such ridicule and criticism,” she said. “People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason, that they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart, you know?”
She also explained that she had tricked herself into not going and that she had to put herself first. “It started with not having anything to wear,” she said. “I’m always prepared for any funeral, anything. I walk around with thr right dress, I travel with clothes just in case something pops off. So I was like, if I’m not going to do this thing, I’ve got to tell my team I don’t even want to have a dress ready, right? Because it’s so easy to say, ‘Let me do the right thing.’”
Many people quickly assumed that she was having martial issues with her husband, former president Barack Obama. “People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason; they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart,” Obama addressed the circulating headlines surrounding the inauguration and her husband’s solo appearances. “It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the things that were right for me; that was a hard thing for me to do.”
Her choosing not to attend events is a way of practicing saying “no”. “It’s a muscle that you have to build,” she expressed. “We started training late in life to build that muscle, right? I am just now starting to build it. Obama hopes to teach encourage her daughters and women to be strategic about saying “no.”
As their conversation continued Obama and Henson spoke about the hardships of being Black women in the spotlight and Obama said that she had to seek therapy after they left the White House in 2017.
“You’ve had to be a shock absorber for your husband, for your children, for your mom, for family, your loved ones, because of where you were sitting in the public eye. That’s not fair to you,” Henson noted. “I’m happy that you are taking care of yourself in the way that you need to.”