Barack and Michelle Obama are laughing off the rumors about their relationship being on the rocks.
Source: Tom Williams / Getty
Former President Barack Obama joined his wife, Michelle Obama, and her brother, Craig Robinson, for the latest episode of their IMO podcast, where the pair joked about the ongoing rumors surrounding their marriage.
The siblings opened the show by teasing the “very, very, very special” guest set to join them that day, teasing the fact that folks have been asking for this guest since the day the podcast was launched.
“This is the episode that everyone’s been waiting for with bated breath,” Craig revealed, “because we have my brother-in-law, your husband, the former president of the United States.”
Michelle added, “He made time in his busy schedule to come on. We are honored.”
And the second President Obama joined the conversation, the teasing began, with Robinson joking, “Wait, you guys like each other?”
“That’s the rumor mill,” Michelle replied while Barack took his seat, quipping back, “She took me back! It was touch and go for a while.”
When her brother added that it was nice to have both Obamas in the same room, the former First Lady said, “I know, because when we aren’t, folks think we’re divorced.”
Rumors surrounding the status of Barack and Michelle’s relationship have been swirling for a while now, which steams from Michelle’s decisions not to attend certain public events after leaving the White House. More specifically, her decision to skip President Donald Trump’s January inauguration.
Back in May, during an interview on The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett podcast, Obama talked about the speculation head-on, saying she’s finally starting to feel she has “permission to do what I want to do.”
“The beauty of my husband and our partnership is that neither one of us was really ever gonna quit at it, ’cause that’s not who we are,” she said at the time. “And I know that about him. He knows that about me.”
On her own IMO podcast in April, Michelle talked further about her decision to skip the inauguration.
“People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason, they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart,” she admitted. “It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the things that was right for me, that was a hard thing for me to do.”
Check out the full episode of IMO with Barack Obama down below:
