Former first lady Michelle Obama has become an open book lately, especially when it comes to her relationship with husband and former President Barack Obama.
And while Michelle has shut down rumors of her marriage to Barack being in trouble, she’s certainly been very vocal about things most married couples tend to keep in-house.
Now the former first lady is spilling the beans once again, now saying she was wrong about a very specific part of her marriage.
On the newest episode of her podcast, IMO, which she co-hosts with her brother Craig Robinson, the siblings spoke with soccer star Abby Wambach and her wife, author Glennon Doyle, about the difficulties of parenting.
“Sometimes, I did overkill on the parenting of trying to be normal,” Michelle Obama told listeners, before sharing that she once punished Malia Obama for “a whole semester,” which Barack Obama questioned.
“It was too much, right?” she polled her guests.
“That’s a lot,” Wambach said. “Did she do something—like, did she murder a human?”
“No, she didn’t murder a human. She did teenage stuff,” Michelle Obama said. “But, you know, every time something happened and they’re teenagers in the White House, I’m thinking, ‘oh my God, this is a sign, they’re going to be on the street; they’re going to be addicts; and this is really going to mess them up.'”
She added that she “put down the hammer,” though it didn’t initially start out as a full semester.
“First, it was a month, and then I let her off, and then she didn’t make curfew or did something like that.”
Michelle Obama noted that she would have “lectures” prepared, but Malia knew exactly what to say. “She understood how to just look me in the eye and go, ‘You’re right, mom. I don’t know what got into me. You’re so right.'”
The mom of two felt like she was being “punked,” which is why the punishment was extended.
“Barack, he’s trying to be the president but also trying to be a good parent, and he’s, like, ‘Yeah, whatever your mom says,’ although he’s looking at me, like, ‘A semester?!’ I was like, ‘I said a semester, and I cannot go back on it.'”
Later on in the podcast, Michelle Obama shocked viewers saying she “was wrong.”
“That was too long. It didn’t work, it didn’t have the desired effect, but I was learning is my point.”
Michelle added that she was in a “strange position” where she “didn’t have any role models” of people with kids in high school in the White House whose father was the first Black president.
“I was kind of flying blind on this,” Michelle added.
Here’s the video of the entire episode:
Michelle also used the podcast to dish on another revelation about her and Barack, revealing that Barack allegedly told her that she was “next up” to die following the passing of her 86-year-old mother in 2024.
She highlighted the way her life changed after she lost her mother and said that her husband’s reality-check on the topic of mortality was brutally real, according to a May 8 clip shared by ENews.
Michelle Obama shared that husband Barack Obama joked she was “next up” after the death of her mother, Marian Robinson, in 2024. https://t.co/WMQzev4pZH pic.twitter.com/Zzg30MR1cx
— E! News (@enews) May 9, 2025