Michelle Obama sparked a wave of speculation and curiosity after referring to herself as being in a “transition” phase of life—comments that come amid renewed public discussion about her marriage to former President Barack Obama.
The former first lady shared the remarks during a candid conversation on The Jay Shetty Podcast, where she reflected on turning 60 and the personal significance of reaching that milestone.
“At this phase of my life, I’m in therapy right now because I’m transitioning, you know?” she told Shetty per The Independent.
“I’m 60 years old, I’ve finished a really hard thing in my life with my family intact, I’m an empty nester, my girls are in – you know, they’ve been launched,” she said.
Now that she is out of the White House and her daughters are grown, Michelle stated she is finally in a position to make decisions solely for herself. “Every choice that I’m making is completely mine,” she added. “I now don’t have the excuse of, ‘Well, my kids need this,’ or ‘My husband needs that,’ or ‘The country needs that.’”
“So, I’m getting that tune-up for this next phase because I believe this is a whole ‘nother phase in life for me,” she continued. “And I now have the wisdom to know—let me go get some coaching while I’m doing it.”
Her remarks come just weeks after the former first lady responded to ongoing speculation about her marriage to Barack Obama. During an appearance on the Work in Progress podcast hosted by actress Sophia Bush, Michelle dismissed claims that personal choices—such as her absence from certain public events—indicated any issues in her relationship.
“That’s the thing that we as women, I think we struggle with disappointing people,” she said. “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 are divorcing.”
Now at age 61, the former first lady said she has begun rethinking everything from her identity to how she spends her time. “We start actually, finally going, ‘What am I doing? Who am I doing this for?’” she reflected. “And if it doesn’t fit into the sort of stereotype of what people think we should do, then it gets labeled as something negative and horrible.”
Also during Shetty’s podcast, Michelle claimed that the immigration policies of President Donald Trump “keep me up” at night because she fears people in the country illegally will fall victim to racism.
The former first lady, who, like her husband, frequently plays the race card, told the “On Purpose” podcast host that she and her brother Craig Robinson allegedly learned at an early age that “no one was going to see beyond the color of our skin.”
Despite both of them hailing from an upper-middle-class background and enjoying success in their lives, her husband rose to become arguably the most powerful man in the world for eight years.
Liberal Shetty asked Michelle Obama what she fears most now, and it was, of course, Trump.
“In this current climate, for me, it’s what’s happening to immigrants,” Obama said.
“My fears are for what I know is happening out there in the streets all over the city,” she added, referring to her hometown of Chicago, Fox News reported.
“Now that we have leadership that is sort of indiscriminately determining who belongs and who doesn’t,” the former first lady said Monday, adding that such deportation decisions “aren’t being made with courts and with due process” — a claim that is false on its face.
“I worry for people of color all over this country, and I don’t know that we will have the advocates to protect everybody,” she continued. “And that makes me … that frightens me. It keeps me up at night.”