Michelle Obama is defending her decision to skip President Donald Trump’s second inauguration.
“You know, as a box-checking person who has been checking her whole life, doing the right thing, trying to always be an example, always going high … I think I just told myself, ‘I think I’ve done enough of that,’ and if I haven’t, then I never will,” the former first lady told Steven Bartlett during Thursday’s episode of “The Diary of a CEO” podcast.
“It’ll never be enough,” she continued. “So let me start now.”
In April, the “Becoming” author clapped back at reports that she didn’t go to the January 20 inauguration with her husband, former president Barack Obama, because their marriage was on the rocks.
“People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason,” the mom of two, 61 said during the April 23 episode of her “IMO” podcast with brother Craig Robinson.
“They had to assume that my marriage was falling apart.”
Michelle clarified that she ultimately decided to do what was right for herself. And despite attending Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 alongside Barack, she opted against attending the second time around.
“It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the thing that was right for me,” she told podcast guest Taraji P. Henson. “That was a hard thing for me to do.”
Elsewhere in the April 23 podcast episode, she admitted she “basically tricked” herself into missing the massive event by ensuring that she didn’t “have anything to wear” for it.
“I was like, if I’m not going to do this thing, I’ve got to tell my team,” she explained. “I don’t even want to have a dress ready, right?”
Had the appropriate attire been ready, she reasoned, she’d be more likely to say, “Let me do the right thing [by attending].”
The former attorney said the decision to skip the event helped her begin to practice the “art of saying no” — something she feels is important for “the young women out there” to learn.
“After all that I’ve done in this world, if … I still have to show people that I love my country, that I’m doing the right thing, that I am … going high all the time, all I’m doing is keeping that crazy bar that our mothers and grandmothers set for us,” she explained.
The mother of Sasha, 23, and Malia, 26, said adopting the ability to say “no” is especially important “in the face of a lot of hypocrisy and contradiction.”
As for the marriage trouble rumors, Michelle assured Sophia Bush during an April 9 appearance on the “Work in Progress” podcast that her 32-year union is solid.
“If [decisions don’t] fit into the sort of stereotype of what people think we should do, then it gets labeled as something negative and horrible,” she said while laughing off the rumors.
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