Michelle Obama Says ‘I’m Not Going Away’—But She’s Done With Politics

Former first lady Michelle Obama says she has no plans to return to political life, saying that she will no longer give campaign speeches or campaign for candidates but that she still wants to stay publicly engaged on her own terms.

“I am not going to be in politics. I’m not giving another political speech. I’m not campaigning for another candidate,” she said during an interview on Wildcard, a podcast from NPR, released on June 26. “But I’m here.”

The former first lady made the comments while discussing on the podcast “IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson,” her brother, along with an array of other topics.

She said the show grew out of a desire to stay connected to her family and her late mother’s legacy. Her mother, Marian Robinson, passed away just over a year ago—with the former first lady saying the podcast was a way for her to keep her mother’s memory alive and stay connected with her brother as they took on the mantle of being the elders of the family following the matriarch’s death.

She also said the show was a platform to speak more freely after years of intense scrutiny in the White House—stating that when she and her husband, former President Barack Obama, were in the White House, they believed they were “on a razor thin wire” of the ability to make mistakes as the first African American first family.

She said her time in the White House was like carrying “a tray of all the hopes and expectations” of ancestors and that making mistakes could “mean curtains” for anyone else to follow them.

“This is the period in my life when the stakes are not so high,” Obama said. “Ten years in the public eye—eight years in the White House—where every word, every utterance, every heel on my shoe, every blink of my eye, every fist bump was analyzed, dissected, and broadcast—celebrated in some instances and ridiculed or disparaged in others. So even when you’re an honest, authentic person you’re watchful and mindful because you don’t want to be the one that creates problems for the president of the United States who happens to be your husband.”

She acknowledged that the interest in her hasn’t faded, saying that even mundane choices can still generate speculation.

“The fact that people don’t see me going out on a date with my husband sparks rumors of the end of our marriage,” she said. “We are 60. You just are not going to know what we’re doing every minute of the day.”

Obama has kept a low public profile in recent months and did not attend President Donald Trump’s second inauguration or the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter alongside her husband. While she didn’t directly reference those events, she said she had recently begun turning down traditional public appearances.

“One of the major decisions I made this year—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,'” she said. “Whatever the backlash was, I had to sit in it and own it, but I didn’t regret it.”

At the age of 60, Obama said she is focused on embracing her own goals, separate from those she shared with her husband.

“I think I’m now at a stage in my life where all my choices are mine,” she said. “Now I can say that whatever I’m doing from this point on is about my ambition. And that’s fairly new.”

She added that while she’s not planning to disappear entirely, her priorities have shifted.

“I’m ready to slow down a bit but not stop,” she said. “That time will come, but it’s probably too soon.”