Since Barack Obama stepped onto the national stage, the mainstream media has gone to enormous lengths to romanticize his personal story, including his marriage to Michelle. There’s a movie dramatizing how they met and a plaque commemorating the spot of their first kiss for crying out loud.
But despite the relentless efforts to crown them as America’s royal couple, whispers are now circulating that their fairy-tale marriage might not have the happily ever after because the marriage of Barack and Michelle Obama has become the subject of intense speculation these past few weeks.
Whispers of marital discord began after Michelle Obama notably missed former President Jimmy Carter's funeral. Her office offered no explanation for her absence, only that she had a “scheduling conflict,” but CNN reported that she was in Hawaii on “extended vacation.”
Something didn’t quite make sense there.
Then there was the decision to skip Trump's inauguration. was viewed by many as a political statement. Allies of Michelle said she wanted “nothing to do with a man undeserving of the presidency and is making no effort to hide her disdain for Trump."
“She meant every word she said on the campaign trail with every fiber of her being,” one source told The Hill. “And she’s no hypocrite.”
It was a perfectly believable explanation, though considering she attended Trump’s first inauguration back in 2017. Had she attended Carter’s funeral, the explanation for her absence might be more believable, but missing both of those events raises major questions.
The Daily Mail notes that there have been rumors about Barack Obama and a Hollywood actress.
The couple have also had to contend with lingering rumours of Barack’s wandering eye. Last October, Friends star Jennifer Aniston publicly dismissed as ‘absolutely untrue’ claims by a US gossip magazine that she and Barack were in a relationship –making Michelle feel ‘betrayed’.
The rumour was compounded by the hosts of a popular pop culture podcast – Who? Weekly – who claimed that the Obamas were ‘living separate lives’ while he and Aniston were having a full-blown affair. Aniston told a US TV chat show host: ‘I’ve met him once. I know Michelle more than him.’
There were, apparently, other tests of their marriage as well.
In a 2017 biography of Obama by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Garrow, Sheila Miyoshi Jager – an ex-girlfriend who Barack came close to marrying before he met Michelle – revealed they’d kept up an intimate, if occasional, relationship between 1991 and 1992, when he had been with Michelle for a couple of years. ‘I always felt bad about it,’ Jager told Garrow.
In late 2013, the National Enquirer claimed the Obamas’ marriage had dissolved after Michelle discovered his Secret Service bodyguards were covering up for his infidelity. They were endlessly fighting, it was claimed, after he posed for a selfie with the glamorous blonde Danish Prime Minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela. Mrs Obama was photographed sitting on his other side with a face like thunder.
Mrs Obama, the Enquirer claimed, would stand by her husband until his presidency ended when he would move back to Hawaii and she would stay in Washington. More than a decade later, they’re still together – albeit she’s the one in Hawaii.
Social media platforms, particularly X, have been abuzz with theories. Posts have ranged from direct predictions of divorce to more nuanced discussions about the couple's public life. This online chatter reflects not just curiosity but also the ease with which rumors can spread in the digital age.
In response to these rumors, Barack Obama took to Instagram with a heartfelt birthday tribute to Michelle, calling her the "love of his life." This public declaration was widely seen as an effort to quash the gossip, affirming their continued affection and commitment to each other.
However, even that photo raised questions, because, as you can see below, it was an extremely unflattering photo of Michelle.
Yikes!
The couple has never shied away from discussing the complexities of their marriage. Michelle has been particularly vocal, even admitting in a 2022 interview that she "couldn't stand" Barack for a decade during their early years of parenting, emphasizing the hard work that marriage entails.
Former first lady Michelle Obama has said she “couldn’t stand” her husband for a decade while the couple’s children were young.
In frank comments to the Black news station Revolt TV last week, Obama – one of the most popular women in America – said that raising children had put strains on her three-decade marriage to Barack Obama, the US president for two four-year terms beginning in 2009.
“People think I’m being catty by saying this – it’s like, there were 10 years where I couldn’t stand my husband,” she told a round-table forum. “And guess when it happened? When those kids were little.”
Obama, 58, was speaking with Kelly Rowland, H.E.R., Winnie Harlow and Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles-Lawson, about an imbalance in her marriage to Barack Obama while his political star was ascending and she was primarily looking after their daughters, Sasha and Malia, who are now in their 20s.
“And for 10 years while we’re trying to build our careers and, you know, worrying about school and who’s doing what and what, I was like, ‘Ugh, this isn’t even,’” Obama said. “And guess what? Marriage isn’t 50/50 – ever, ever.
“There are times I’m 70, he’s 30. There are times he’s 60, 40, but guess what?” she continued. “Ten years – we’ve been married 30. I would take 10 bad years over 30 – it’s just how you look at it. And people give up … [saying], ‘Five years – I can’t take it.’”
The true state of the Obamas' marriage remains known only to them. Frankly, I don’t know how either can stand the other.
How can they love each other when each one is enamored with his/her self? They're both totally self absorbed.
Not that there’s anything wrong with it…