Why Michelle Obama decided to skip Donald Trump’s inauguration

Michelle Obama has finally revealed why she chose not to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration back in January.

On the latest episode of her podcast IMO, in which she appeared alongside her brother Craig Robinson and actor Taraji P. Henson, Michelle explained she has been trying to live her life in a way that is best for her rather than others.

Since leaving the White House, Michelle has been in therapy, working on defining life on her own terms and explained that attending events without her husband Barack Obama, has been helping her to say “no” to situations that don’t benefit her.

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”It’s a muscle that you have to build,” she explained.

“And I think we suffered [in the White House], because it’s almost like we started training late in life to build that muscle, right? I am just now starting to build it.”

At the time of the inauguration, many had begun to speculate that the Becoming author and her husband had separated. Obama explained, however, that was not the case.

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“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,” she explained.

“People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason. They had to assume that my marriage was falling apart.”

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The former First Lady shared that at this point in her life, she’s working hard to “intentionally practise” making the choices that are right for herself.

“It took everything in my power to not do the thing that ‘was right,’ or was perceived as right, but do the things that was right for me,” she shared on her podcast.

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Since Michelle is still working on flexing the muscle needed to ”own [her] life”, she had to kind of trick herself into skipping the inauguration.

“It started with not having anything to wear,” she explained.

“I was like, ‘If I’m not going to do this thing, I got to tell my team, I don’t even want to have a dress ready,’ right? Because it’s so easy to just say ‘let me do the right thing.'”

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