Michelle Obama Addresses Divorce Rumours, Reveals Why She's Rarely Seen With Husband Barack

In an attempt to shut down divorce rumours, former US First Lady Michelle Obama has revealed why she and her husband, Barack Obama, don't make public appearances together anymore. On Thursday, the 61-year-old appeared on NPR's Wild Card podcast with Rachel Martin, where she said that she is not photographed alongside her husband, former US President Barack Obama, because of their age. During the podcast appearance, she joked that the couple doesn't document their relationship on social media because they are "too old" for Instagram.

"The fact that people don't see me going out on a date with my husband sparks rumours of the end of our marriage. It's like, 'OK, so we don't Instagram every minute of our lives. We are 60. We're 60, y'all," Michelle Obama said, according to The Independent. "You just are not gonna know what we're doing every minute of the day," she added. 

The couple first sparked divorce rumours when the former first lady did not attend Jimmy Carter's funeral and President Donald Trump's inauguration back in January. Back then, she defended her decision to skip the events, saying, "One of the major decisions I made this year was to stay put and not attend funerals and inaugurations and all the things that I'm supposed to attend." 

"That was a part of me using my ambition to say, 'Let me define what I want to do, apart from what I'm supposed to do, what the world expects of me.' And I have to own that. Those are my choices," she said, per The Independent. "Whatever the backlash was, I had to sit in it and own it. But I didn't regret it, you know? It's my life now, and I can say that, now," she added.

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Previously, the 61-year-old has also addressed her reduced presence in public and at political events, saying she is focusing on her well-being and making conscious choices to take back control of her time. 

In conversation with actress Sophia Bush on the Work In Progress podcast, she also dismissed the ongoing divorce rumours with Barack Obama and opened up about shifts in her life since leaving the White House eight years ago. With her daughters now adults, she said that she has found the freedom to reassess her priorities and focus on her well-being.

"I could have made a lot of these decisions years ago, but I didn't give myself that freedom. Maybe even as much as I let my kids live their own lives, I use their lives as an excuse for why I couldn't do something," she said.