Former First Lady Michelle Obama raised eyebrows with what her next chapter in life might look like.
The Obamas sat down with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts ahead of the opening of the Obama Presidential Center. The long-delayed, over-budget project includes a 225-foot-tall museum tower and a nearly 20-acre campus funded through private donations, according to the Associated Press.
“One word to describe your next chapter,” Roberts asked the couple.
Barack Obama said, “Fun.”
Michelle Obama replied: “Me.”
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“What a selfish and entitled person,” Steve Guest, a conservative commentator, said.
Michelle Obama’s apparent focus on her own priorities comes months after she was forced to address swirling rumors that she and her husband of 32 years, former President Barack Obama, could be heading for divorce.
In April, the 62-year-old “Becoming” author discussed the rumors during an episode of Sophia Bush’s “Work in Progress” podcast.
Speculation about potential marital struggles started swirling after Michelle skipped attending former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral in December. She also didn’t attend President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, The Daily Wire previously reported.
“The interesting thing is that, when I say ‘no,’ for the most part people are like, ‘I get it, and I’m okay,’” Michelle said, per E! News. “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.”
“This couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions for herself, right?” she continued. “But that’s what society does to us. We start, actually, finally going, ‘What am I doing? Who am I doing this for?’ 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.”
Then, Michelle said she’s considering “making some big girl decisions” at this point in her life and understanding that she has to “own it fully.”
“If not now, when? What am I waiting for? How am I going to spend 20 years?” she said during the interview. “Now is the time for me to start asking myself these hard questions of, ‘Who do I truly want to be every day?’”
“And that changes,” she added. “So, who do I want to have a lunch with? How long do I want to stay in a place? Do I want to travel? If a girlfriend calls and says, ‘Let’s go here,’ I can say ‘Yes!’ I can. And I’m trying to do that more and more.”
The former president has not specifically addressed divorce rumors, but he did mention his marriage while speaking with Hamilton College president Steven Tepper.
“I was in a deep deficit with my wife, so I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things,” he said at the time.
On Michelle’s podcast, which she hosts with her brother, the couple tried to dismiss the rumors.
“She took me back,” Barack said. “It was touch-and-go for a while.”
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