By Kolawole Ojebisi
Former First Lady Michelle Obama has broken her silence on why she skipped President Donald Trump’s second inauguration earlier this year.
Obama, who was also notably absent at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral on January 9,, spoke in a no-holds-barred interview on the April 23 episode of her podcast IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson, which she co-hosts with her brother.
In a discussion with actress Taraji P. Henson, she opened up about the deeply personal reasons behind her decision.
“My decision to skip the inauguration, you know, what people don’t realise, 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. They had to assume that my marriage was falling apart,” she continued.
“While I’m here really trying to own my life and intentionally practise making the choice that was right for me.”
The decision, she explained, was part of a broader commitment to honouring her own needs even when doing so went against public expectations.
“It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but to do the things that were for me. That was a hard thing for me to do,” Obama added.
To stay true to her choice, the former First Lady said she had to deliberately remove any temptation to change her mind.
“It started with not having anything to wear,” she shared. “I mean, I had affirmatively because I am always prepared for any funeral, anything. I walk around with the right dress, I travel with clothes just in case something pops off. So I was like, if I am not going to do this thing, I’ve got to tell my team, I don’t even want to have a dress ready.”
“Because it’s so easy to just say, ‘Let me do the right thing,’” Michelle Obama added.
In addition to protecting her personal peace, Obama said she also wanted to set an example for her daughters — Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23 — about the importance of boundaries and self-prioritisation.
“I want them to start practising now the art of saying ‘no’,” she said.
“Because I see it in them — pleasing, excelling, not wanting to take anything for granted, always showing gratitude, feeling like they’re enough right now, right? It’s a practice. It’s a muscle that you have to build, because if you don’t constantly build it, you don’t develop it.”
The former First Lady had spoken about this evolving mindset earlier in April during an appearance on the Work in Progress podcast with Sophia Bush. There, she highlighted the societal pressures women face when they put themselves first.
“So much so that this year, people couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself, they had to assume that my husband and I were divorcing,” she said.
“This couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions for herself, right? But that’s what society does to us. We start actually finally going, ‘What am I doing? Who am I doing this for?’” she continued.
“And if it doesn’t fit into the sort of stereotype of what people think we should do, then it gets labelled as something negative and horrible.”
She concluded with a powerful statement on self-determination:
“I feel like it’s time for me to make some big-girl decisions about my life and own it fully.”
