Barack and Michelle Obama are not getting divorced — and the very idea has become a joke between the two.
The 44th president joined his wife and his brother-in-law Craig Robinson on the siblings’ “IMO” podcast, where they shut down any public speculation about problems in their marriage.
“Wait, you guys like each other?” Robinson, 63, asked at the start of the Wednesday, July 16, episode.
“She took me back,” quipped Barack, also 63. “It was touch-and-go for a while!”
Everything Michelle and Barack Obama Have Said About Divorce Rumors
When Craig joked it was nice to see the two of them in the same room together, his sister responded, “I know, ’cause when we aren’t, folks think we’re divorced.”
Barack and Michelle, 61, tied the knot in 1992 and welcomed daughters Malia and Sasha in 1998 and 2001, respectively. Now, eight years after Barack left office, rumors keep swirling that the two are headed for a split.
The talk reached its peak in January when Michelle was conspicuously absent from former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral and later Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Barack, however, claims he was blissfully unaware of those rumors.
“These are the kinds of things that I just miss,” Barack admitted. “I don’t even know this stuff’s going on, and then somebody’ll mention it to me, and I’m all like, ‘What are you talking about?’”
Michelle Obama Pokes Fun at Barack Obama Divorce Rumors
As she has multiple times before, Michelle firmly shut down any talk that her marriage was on the rocks.
“There hasn’t been one moment in our marriage where I thought about quitting my man,” she said. “And we’ve had some really hard times but we’ve had a lot of fun times, a lot of adventures, and I have become a better person because of the man I’m married to.”
Her husband almost couldn’t take it.
“OK, don’t make me cry now right at the beginning of the show,” he said. “Don’t let me start tearing up now.”
Michelle Obama Addresses Speculation She and Husband Barack Are Divorcing
Barack has said previously that since leaving office in 2017, he has tried to prioritize his marriage in a way his last job didn’t allow.
“Look, I was in a deep deficit with my wife,” he said while speaking to students at Hamilton College in April. “So I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things.”
Even Robinson has had to address the rumors. The former Oregon State men’s basketball coach said on the podcast that he was recently in Wichita for his son’s AAU basketball tournament, where he said a woman approached him and asked for a picture — then asked what Barack did to cause friction in his marriage to Michelle.
“She was like, ‘He did something, didn’t he?’” Craig recalled. “I was like, ‘Don’t worry everything’s fine.’ Let me tell you, she was so happy you would have thought I gave her a Christmas gift.”
