Barack Obama Finally Addresses Those Divorce Rumors

Barack Obama has finally set the record straight on the status of his marriage.

On Wednesday, the former president appeared on former first lady Michelle Obama’s podcast “IMO,” marking their first joint comments on the persistent rumor that they quietly separated earlier this year.

Michelle Obama’s brother and co-host, Craig Robinson, was first to address the rumors, quipping, “What, you guys like each other?” as the former president entered the room.

“She took me back!” joked Obama, 63. “It was touch and go for a while!”

Rumors that the couple, who married in 1992, are divorcing have circulated widely since January, when the former first lady skipped both the funeral of President Jimmy Carter and the inauguration of President Donald Trump.

However, Wednesday’s podcast appearance is the first time the former president has directly addressed the speculation.

Despite his reticence to speak up on rumors about his own marriage, the former president had harsh advice for fellow Democrats when he spoke at a DNC fundraiser on July 11.

“What I have been surprised by is the degree to which I’ve seen people who—when I was president, or progressives, liberals—stood for all kinds of stuff, who seem like they’re kind of cowed and intimidated and shrinking away from just asserting what they believe, or at least what they said they believe,” Obama reportedly told donors.

For the party to defeat Trump moving forward, the former president said, “It’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up.”

Michelle Obama, who has been more proactive about shutting down the divorce speculation, was quick to shed more light on their relationship during Wednesday’s podcast.

“There hasn’t been one moment in our marriage where I thought about quitting my man,” said Obama, 61. “We’ve had some really hard times, 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.”

Not only has the former president been hesitant to address divorce speculation directly, but his comments in recent months have added fuel to the rumor that the couple was at least facing a rough patch.

In a sit-down interview with Hamilton College President Steven Tepper in April, Obama noted that he was spending his post-presidency years working on his marriage. “I was in a deep deficit with my wife,” said the former president. “So I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things.”

Unlike her husband, Michelle Obama has spent the last several months vocally decrying the divorce rumors—and offering an alternative explanation for her absence from the funeral and inauguration.

In an April episode of IMO, Obama explained, “My decision to skip the inauguration—or my decision to make choices at the beginning of this year that suited me—were met with such ridicule and criticism. People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason. They had to assume that my marriage was falling apart."

The “IMO” host continued to shut down divorce speculation in a series of podcast appearances in May and June. Appearing on the podcast “The Diary of a CEO,” Obama declared, “If I were having problems with my husband, everybody would know about it.”

However, the former First Lady also reignited the rumor mill last month, when she remarked on another episode of “IMO” that she was “so glad” not to have had a son, “because he would have been [another] Barack Obama.” The couple shares two daughters, Malia, 27, and Sasha, 24.

On Wednesday’s episode of “IMO,” Robinson, 63, said the rumors about his sister’s marriage had become so widespread that a stranger in Wichita, Kansas, had stopped him on the street to ask whether the Obamas were truly divorcing.

“This woman came up to me and she was so nice,” said Robinson. “She’s like, ‘Can I have a picture?’ then… ‘What did he do?”

“And you knew she was gonna say ‘What did he do?’” joked the former president. “It wasn’t like, ‘What happened to them?’ It was like, ‘How’d he mess up?’”

Robinson explained that he entertained the conversation so he could report back to his sister and brother-in-law, but eventually reassured the woman that the couple were definitely not divorcing.

“I was like, ‘Don’t worry, everything’s fine,” said Robinson. “Let me tell you, she was so happy, you would have thought I gave her a Christmas gift.”