Michelle Obama opened up about how date nights with her husband evolved from exchanging secret looks at state dinners to not speaking all day so they would have something to talk about at dinner.
“When we’re both happy about date night, we’re at home. We are not getting dressed. We just have a nice dinner, candles lit, music, we talk,” the 61-year-old former first lady told People about her date nights with former president Barack Obama, 64.
“We don’t talk for the whole day, because we’re in the house together all day, right?” the former first lady said, adding that she tells her husband,“‘Don’t talk to me. Save it for dinner,’” so they’ll have something to talk about during their date nights.
In an interview promoting her upcoming book, The Look, in which she explores how her fashion sense has evolved over the years, Obama discussed how her style shaped her time in the White House and what her relationship with her husband looks like after more than three decades of marriage.
“We’ve been married 32, 33 [years]… I always forget,” Obama said to People, before apologizing to her husband for not knowing the exact number. “Sorry, honey,” she said.
In early 2025, rumors that the couple’s marriage was in trouble gained traction after the former first lady was not seen with her husband at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral or President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The former first lady, now a podcast host and author, has not hidden the fact that she “couldn’t stand” her husband for about 10 years of their marriage and frequently speaks about the realities of a long marriage on the podcast she co-hosts with her older brother, IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson.
On one episode of their podcast, the siblings hosted Barack Obama, who joked about divorce rumors, saying, “She took me back! It was touch and go for a while.”
The former president and first lady married on Oct. 3, 1992, and Obama reflected that “Barack didn’t pledge riches, only a life that would be interesting.”
On their anniversary this year, both Obamas took to social media to express their admiration for one another. While Barack Obama wrote that marrying his wife was “the best decision” he ever made, Michelle Obama wrote that they have “been on quite the journey over the last 33 years—and yet, I love you even more today than the day we said ‘I do.’”
During her years in the White House, Obama faced criticism for her fashion choices at state dinners she attended with her husband. Even so, the former first lady decided to treat those high-profile dinners like a wedding night, saying she was “getting all dolled up” for her husband.
“That’s the romance, those little moments in this crazy world, where we could look at each other and go, ‘You’re cute,’” Obama told People, reflecting on turning state dinners into date nights.
Now, the former first lady says she is finally making every decision for herself and is working every day on “waking up, looking in the mirror and telling myself that I am smart and beautiful, and kind and worthy.”
“My kids are grown and launched, they are healthy and happy. My husband is doing just fine,” Obama said at the conclusion of the interview, speaking about the two daughters she shares with her husband, Malia, 27, and Sasha, 24.
“This is the first time in my life that when I say and do something, here in this interview, writing this book, these are my choices. That is freeing,” she added.
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