Michelle Obama has revealed what her husband, Barack, said to her after her mother died.
The former First Lady's mom, Marian Robinson, sadly died in May last year at the age of 86. In the months since, Michelle has been confronting not just the deep emotional loss, but what comes next, both practically and personally.
Speaking on the IMO podcast with her brother, Craig Robinson, the 61-year-old shared that her husband, Barack Obama, responded to her mother’s death with three brutal words: “You’re next up.”
“Thank God you're my big brother, and I have a husband who's older,” Michelle said during the conversation, cited by Daily Mail. “Barack was saying, you know, ‘Well, you’re next up.’ And I was like, ‘I'm not really ready to be next up,’ I told him, ‘You're next up and Craig is next up.’ I delegate that power to you.”
The siblings' father, Fraser C. Robinson, passed away in 1991 at the age of 55. Now, with both parents gone, Michelle admitted she’s feeling a major life shift.
“That’s really when you become an adult, is when your parents are not in that spot of managing and maintaining,” she said. “But that's going to happen at some point where each of us, in our own lives, we become the parent, we become the convener, we become the glue.”
The transition has been tough, no matter her age or accomplishments. “It's a major shift in your life,” she added. “I don't care how old you get. Mom and dad are mom and dad. Even when I was taking care of mom, I still gotta listen to her. I can sort of boss her around, but in the end, she's my mother.”
“There’s a comfort level in that, knowing that no matter how wise or experienced I am in the world, mom always knew more," she concluded.
In the wake of her mother’s death and entering her 60s, the mom-of-two revealed she’s started therapy to help navigate what she called a new chapter in her life.
“At this phase of my life, I'm in therapy right now because I'm transitioning, you know?” she told Jay Shetty on The Jay Shetty Podcast. “I'm 60 years old, I've finished a really hard thing in my life with my family intact, I'm an empty nester, my girls are in - you know, they've been launched.”
Michelle explained that for the first time, her decisions aren’t shaped by obligations to others: “I now don't have the excuse of, ‘Well, my kids need this’ or ‘My husband needs that,’ or ‘The country needs that.’”
She described therapy as a way to “unwind some old habits" and "sort through some old guilt,” particularly related to her late mother.
“So, I'm getting that tune-up for this next phase because I believe this is a whole 'nother phase in life for me. And I now have the wisdom to know - let me go get some coaching while I'm doing it,” she added.
Michelle also used the moment to advocate for mental health access: “I am an advocate of it. Everybody needs to find their form of it, the best way they can.”
As she embraces this next chapter, Michelle has also been quick to shut down speculation about her marriage to Barack Obama - a topic that caught fire after she missed both Donald Trump’s inauguration and Jimmy Carter’s funeral.
On an episode of her podcast, the mom-of-two directly addressed the rumors: “People couldn't believe that I was saying no for any other reason, they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart," cited by The New York Post.
She was even more blunt on entrepreneur Steven Bartlett’s show, saying: “If I were having problems with my husband, everybody would know about it,” she said with a laugh, gesturing to her brother: “Let me tell you, he would know it. And everybody would know it.”
She added: “I would be problem-solving in public, like, ‘Let me tell you what he did.’” Craig joked in response, “If they were having a problem, I’d be doing a podcast with him.”
Michelle acknowledged that marriage hasn’t always been easy, but said, “I wouldn't trade it,” calling Barack “my person”.
“The beauty of my husband and our partnership is that neither one of us was ever really, ever going to quit at it, because that's not who we are. And I know that about him. He knows that about me,” she explained.
The former First Lady is now focused on defining her life on her own terms and encouraging her daughters, Sasha and Malia, to do the same.
“I want them to start practicing now the art of saying no,” she said. "Because I see it in them - pleasing, excelling, not wanting to take anything for granted, always showing gratitude."
“Feeling like they’re enough right now. It’s a practice. It’s a muscle that you have to build. Because if you don’t constantly build it, you don’t develop it," she concluded.