Over the past few months, Michelle Obama’s absence from key moments—like the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter and the inauguration of President Trump.
On Tuesday, April 8, 2025, she addressed it all in a new episode of the Work in Progress podcast with Sophia Bush.
In her own words, Michelle Obama explained that her absences are deliberate—a personal choice after years of a demanding public life. She said, “I could have made a lot of these decisions years ago, but I didn’t give myself that freedom. 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.”
Addressing the divorce rumors directly, she said, “I still find time to, you know, give speeches, to be out there in the world, to work on projects. I still care about girls’ education. We, you know, the library is opening in a year from now. Certain things I am and am not doing with the library,” Obama said.
Michelle Obama continued, “That’s the thing that we as women, I think, 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 were divorcing.”
Michelle Obama Speaks Out: The Truth Behind Her Absences and Divorce Rumors
