Former first lady Michelle Obama was a prominent no-show at Donald Trump’s inauguration earlier this year, but she’s only now explaining why she decided to skip the ceremonies.
At the time of the inauguration, Obama stayed mum about her absence, but a source close to her suggested that Trump’s attacks on her family and people of color in general played a role.
“She’s not one to plaster on a pleasant face and pretend for protocol’s sake,” the source told People.
In the latest episode of ”IMO With Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson,” the podcast she co-hosts with her brother, Craig Robinson, Obama finally dished on her thinking at the time with guest Taraji P. Henson.
Obama was surprised that her absence at Trump’s inauguration started rumors that her marriage with Barack Obama was on the rocks.
“People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason, they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart,” Michelle Obama said. “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. That was a hard thing for me to do.”
Although Michelle Obama didn’t want to attend the inauguration, she feared that she might cave to pressure, so she put an action plan in place.
Well, actually, a “lack of action” plan.
“It started with not having anything to wear,” Michelle Obama explained about the moment she decided to skip the inauguration. “I was like, if I’m not going to do this thing, I got to tell my team, I don’t even want to have a dress ready, right? Because it’s so easy to just say let me do the right thing.”
She said avoiding the inauguration was part of recent efforts she’s made to practice the “art of saying no” when it feels right.
“It’s a muscle that you have to build,” she said. “And I think we suffered, because it’s almost like we started training late in life to build that muscle, right? I am just now starting to build it.”
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You can see the complete podcast below. Michelle Obama’s comments about the inauguration come in around the 43-minute mark.
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