Michelle Obama recalls Barack Obama joking after her mom's death: 'You're next up'
Michelle Obama recalls Barack Obama joking after her mom's death: 'You're next up'
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Michelle and Barack Obama address divorce rumors
Former first lady Michelle Obama spoke with Sophia Bush on the "Work in Progress" podcast about the divorce rumors.
Michelle Obama is revealing how husband Barack Obama helped her find a sense of humor in the wake of her mother's death.
The former first lady, 61, dedicated the May 7 episode of her "IMO" podcast, which she co-hosts with brother Craig Robinson, to having a frank conversation about how they have coped with their mother Marian Robinson's death in May 2024.
"That's sort of the darned thing about being a grown-up. When you lose your parents, you're next up," Michelle Obama said as part of the siblings' response to a listener's question. "I guess if anything with mom's loss, I thank God you're my big brother and I have a husband who's older."
She then recalled, "Because Barack was saying, '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.'"
On a somber note, she related to the listener, whose father recently died, by relating to how a family structure changes along with the health of one's parents.
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"That's really when you become an adult, when your parents are not in that spot of managing and maintaining. But that's going to happen at some point, where ... we become the parent, we become the convener, we become the glue," Obama said.
She added, "There's a comfort level in knowing that no matter how wise or experienced I am in the world, Mom always knew more. Even if that wasn't true, it was just a good feeling, 'Let me go talk to my mommy.'"
Michelle Obama describes picking up nephews from school with secret service
Later in the episode, Obama opened up about how she and her brother make an effort to stay close, despite her living in Washington, D.C, while he is in Milwaukee.
She admitted that though "sometimes coming to (Robinson's) house is a little bit of a hassle" due to the level of security she has as a former first lady, she still makes time for his family.
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"I even did pickup for the boys, and they were happy to see me in the motorcade," she said. "When I told my detail, 'We're doing pickup. We're gonna go to grammar school and pick up my nephews,' they were like, 'Yes ma'am.' So off we went."
"Three SUVs later," Robinson joked. Obama added, "And 12 guys with guns."
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