Former President Barack Obama opened up about his marriage amid divorce rumors. Speaking to students at Hamilton College on Thursday, he said wittily that he’s working to recover from a “deep deficit” in his marriage to Michelle.
“I was in a deep deficit with my wife,” he said. “So I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things.”
The Obamas have been in the news lately with rumors about their union.The buzz around their separation spread so far that some media outlets claimed Barack Obama was dating Friends‘ star Jennifer Aniston. The actress, however, denied the rumors during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, saying she has only met the former president once.
Previously, Barack Obama hinted about how his presidency affected his relationship to his wife.
“Let me just say this: It sure helps to be out of the White House and to have a little more time with her,” he said in an interview on CBS Mornings in 2023.
Michelle has also opened up about the rumors. Speaking on her podcast, IMO, which she co-hosts with her brother Craig Robinson, the former first lady said, “Barack, you know, he had to adjust to what ‘on time’ was for me.”
She explained that her husband would start getting ready at the time they were supposed to be leaving.
“You know, I’ve got this husband who’s like, when it’s time to leave, it’s 3, he’s getting up and going to the bathroom,” she added.
“And I was like, dude, dude, a 3 o’clock departure means you’ve done all that, you know? It’s like, don’t start looking for your glasses, you know, at the 3 o’clock departure.”
Michelle also opened up about her life after her daughters have moved out.
“[Life] is whatever I want, Sophia, It’s whatever I want,” she said, adding that life of an “empty nester” is liberating.
“It’s the first time in my life all of my choices are for me,” she said on Sophia Bush’s podcast, Work in Progress.
It was her decisions not to attend Trump’s inauguration and Jimmy Carter’s funeral that triggered the speculations in the first place.
“That’s the thing that we as women, I think… we struggle with disappointing people. I mean, so much so, that this year people were… 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,” she explained.